Privatised Roads

Tonight's latest government proposal for privatising roads is a really scary proposition. We know what happened to Railtrack, it was a disaster that had to be replaced by Network Rail, effectively back into public ownership. And the train companies haven't an inspiring record.

 

This time the idea is to have a number of companies running parts of our roads, to my mind an even more dangerous proposition if not rigidly monitored and controlled. I could see us coming off worst as they look after their majority customers, car drivers. That threat of compulsory use of cyclepaths, where provided but often unsuitable, might rear it's head for example.

 

RoadTrack, Network Roads, Virgin Roadways etc, what to you think?

They could simply go the whole hog and privatise oxygen...

I think it appalling; we've learned nothing from wrongly privatising all the fundamentals: telecoms, trains and utilities and soon health and roads. Whoever is propping-up this government should be questioning why.

I see nothing green in this, nothing coordinated, nothing but market forces being let-loose to take road policy where it will find the best profits for those large companies with the muscle to move in.

I don't like this at all. History shows us very few people benefit in the long term with privatisation - certainly not the customer. Just makes the rich few even richer. Think railways, water, gas, electric...

 

Plus, there will probably be a rush for the main/profitable roads, but what about the minor less profitable roads?

The Daughters of Rebecca!

Like all privatisations, it's back door taxation. The government gets to it's publicly acceptable taxation limits, retains the money for whatever they are privatising for other purposes, then gets the private sector to make us pay a second time for the service they've abandoned.

 

Thus it's just a way of increasing the total tax take without directly getting the blame, leaving the thick-skinned private companies to take the flak.

Rather than rioting welsh transvestites, perhaps a glib society approach with teams of misguided volunteers taking ownership of potholes...

Infrastructure spends such as road and rail are ideal projects for funding using freshly printed money. Spending on infrastructure is not inflationary and doesn't affect the value of the pound in peoples pockets. There are alternatives to private funding...

That's absolutely right, the French rebuilt their country in this way after WW2, with high speed trains to all main points, a superb new Metro undergound system, advanced airports and a great road network. They had no money to do it so they printed what was needed. That infrastructure's benefits paid it all back handsomely.