Highways Agency - Safe roads, Reliable journeys, Informed travellers

1999

Question 16/3/99 - David Maclean (Conservative, Penrith and The Border): To ask the Secretary of State for the Environment, Transport and the Regions when he intends to introduce public/private partnerships for the maintenance of roads.

Answer - John Reid (Labour, Hamilton North and Bellshill): Existing DBFO contracts already cover a significant proportion of the maintenance obligations for the trunk roads network. We have announced that we intend to increase this through pursuing the DBFO procurement method for certain schemes announced in the accelerated review and in our targeted programme of improvements. In addition, we are currently examining the scope for further public private partnerships for trunk road maintenance.

Question 23/4/99 - Phil Willis (Liberal Democrat, Harrogate and Knaresborough): To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Transport and the Regions, how many road building schemes using the design, build, finance and operate contracting method are (a) currently completed and (b) under construction: what is the estimated cost to the public funds for each project over the life time of the DBFO contract.

Answer - Glenda Jackson (Labour, Hampstead and Highgate): Eight DBFO contracts encompassing eleven trunk road schemes have been awarded and ten of the schemes are now open to traffic. The A30 Honiton to Exeter Improvement scheme that forms part of the A30/A35 Exeter to Bere Regis project is still under construction.

The Net Present Value (NPV) range of shadow tolls represents the estimated cost of each project over the lifetime of the contract. The actual payments are dependent on traffic volumes on the road.

The published details are as follows.