Published: 30 November 2012
The Freight Transport Association (FTA) has welcomed news that the Government is to introduce major improvements to the way road schemes are planned and built.
With three of England’s motorways potentially seeing increased capacity by spring 2015 thanks to the increase in speed of upgrades, both motorists and hauliers are set to benefit from the improvements.
The new way of working, which includes moving toward a 24 hour operation and taking more work off-site to bring back to site as pre-fabricated/pre-assembled units, means that work will be accelerated with lanes being added to motorways in up-to half the time it normally takes.
This is welcome news to the FTA which has campaigned for a long time in regard to the length of time it can take for road improvement schemes to complete.
The three schemes being accelerated are:
1. M3 J2 to 4a, Surrey
2. M6 J10a to 13, West Midlands
3. M1 J28 to 31, Derbyshire
Malcolm Bingham, Head of Road Freight Management Policy for FTA said:
“New approaches to accelerated delivery are very welcome. There is public concern that when motorway schemes are being carried out there seems to be long periods of time where no work is being done. Moving towards a 24 hour operation with more people working on multiple phases at once will of course speed up the delivery and most importantly demonstrate that works are being done as quickly as possible.”
Source: hgvuk.com