Archived press release

"Garbage in, Garbage out" - FoE slams road lobby report

23 November 1994

The British Road Federation (BRF)'s report 'Costing the Royal Commission' is biased by unjustified assumptions and undermined by mischievous claims, Friends of the Earth has warned Transport Secretary, Dr. Brian Mawhinney [1]. For example:

n the BRF claims to have used "the same economics and transportation models that the Royal Commission used" (BRF press statement), whereas the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution merely quoted a BRF study to demonstrate that road-building cannot prevent increased congestion [2];

n the BRF assumes that the impact on jobs of greater spending on public transport is "not very different" from the effect of spending the same amount on roads (6.7), whereas research to be published today by Friends of the Earth shows spending on public transport creates more jobs than spending on roads [3];

n the BRF assumes that increase in funding on public transport is spent entirely on rail improvements, ignoring the enormous potential of buses for relieving congestion and creating jobs (6.1).

n the BRF assumes increased spending on public transport is equivalent to the cut from projected roads spending (6.1), therefore taking no account of how revenue from increased fuel duties might be spent (7.2) [4];

Roger Higman, Friends of the Earth's Transport Campaigner said:

"The British Road Federation, an overly influential body yet again peddling arrant nonsense, has produced a classic example of 'garbage in, garbage out'. It's report is based on unjustified assumptions and undermined by mischievous claims. It appears laughable in comparison to the Royal

PAGE 2 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH Commission's well-researched and authoritative work". ENDS

NOTES TO EDITORS:

[1] The British Road Federation's report "Costing the Royal Commission: the economic impact of implementing the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution" is published today (BRF Press Notice 94/54).

It purports to be an economic assessment of the recent report by the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution (RCEP) "Transport and the Environment", although it merely looked at three of the Royal Commission's 100 odd recommendations. The three recommendations are:

Recommendation 28 : 'that fuel duty be increased year by year so as to double the price of fuel, relative to that of other goods, by 2005'

Recommendation 58 'Planned expenditure on motorways and other trunk roads should be reduced to about half its current level'

Recommendation 70 'We recommend a substantially increased programme of investment in public transport over a ten-year period'

Friends of the Earth warned Dr Mawhinney of the BRF's errors in a letter.

[2] The Royal Commission merely quoted the BRF's previous report 'Roads and Jobs', along with a study by Friends of the Earth, to justify its conclusion that:

'if the past trend of road traffic growth continues, the present programme of road building and road widening would not prevent a serious worsening of congestion on the trunk road network after 2000' (RCEP 6.29).

[3] 'Working Future: Jobs and the Environment' will be published later today. It shows how a range of environmental policies could create 700,000 additional jobs by 2005. It quotes German research showing that if o500 million was directed at investments in the rail network in the UK, between 3,000 and 8,150 more jobs would be created than if the money were spent on road building.

PAGE 3 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH There will be a joint launch of 'Working Future' for MPs and press in Room A, 1 Parliament Street, Westminster, London SW1 from 10.30-11.30 on November 24th 1994.

PAGE 4 FRIENDS OF THE EARTH [4] The BRF assumes (6.1) that spending on public transport would increase by o1 billion p.a., which is broadly equivalent to the cut in roads spending. But in its combined assessment of all three recommendations, it assumes no change is made in the rates of other taxation (or other public spending programmes) to compensate for the revenue raised from fuel duty.

Friends of the Earth calculates that in 1995/6 alone, the Government would receive almost o2 billion in increased duties, if it began to implement the RCEP's recommendations. This would rise successively up until 2005. It is unthinkable that a large proportion of such a sum would not be used either to reduce taxation or increase public spending.

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Published by Friends of the Earth Trust