FTA demands assurances detrunking fund will not punish lorries

The Freight Transport Association has urged caution following yesterday's Department for Transport (DfT) announcement that £66 million will be provided to local authorities to maintain their detrunked roads.

Local authorities tend not to ring-fence money for road maintenance projects. The FTA is concerned that when funds are allocated in this way to the local authorities that the money is used to maintain detrunked roads – which remain a vital part of the road network – and not diverted elsewhere.

Malcolm Bingham, FTA’s Head of Road Network Management Policy, said: “There is a danger that once this money comes under local authority control it may be used for funding local projects other than road improvements and maintenance. We would like the DfT to ensure that this much-needed money is spent wisely for its intended purpose and not swallowed up by other local concerns.”

Detrunking is a process where the management of non-core trunk roads is transferred from the Highways Agency to the Local Highway Authority. The thinking being that it will enable the Highways Agency to focus on the national strategic road network while enabling local authorities to focus on local routes familiar to them.

Whenever the Highways Agency detrunks a road, FTA will make a formal objection and only withdraw it when assurances have been made that a lorry ban will not be imposed.

Bingham continues: “Despite freight’s importance to local business and the economy at large, lorries still suffer from a not-in-my-backyard attitude and we fear that some local authorities might ban them from roads for political reasons. By doing so they would severely jeopardise commercial vehicle operators and the communities and businesses that depend on them.”