MPs criticise transport funding rule over road-pricing clause

The government must rethink the rule that councils can only get cash from the £2.5bn Transport Innovation Fund (TIF) if they opt for road pricing, a parliamentary report has said.

The annual review of the Department for Transport by MPs on the Commons transport committee said ministers had been wrong to force councils to try piecemeal schemes rather than launch a national pilot.

There was "little evidence to suggest that local authorities have the appetite for submitting the necessary bids [and] we recommend that the government re-examine its policy with respect to national road pricing", it said.

Matthew Lugg, chair of the County Surveyors' Society engineering committee, said: "The TIF has proved disappointing. It should be decoupled from road-user charging so that we can look at other ways to tackle congestion.

Mr Lugg added: "There is all that money there and you have to wonder which councils will get it, given only Manchester and Cambridgeshire seem interested in charging." (LGC, 12 June).

The MPs also criticised the local transport plan process as "excessively complex".