Little sign of sustainable thinking in M-way charging plan

Last month's budget gave the green light to the Department of Transport's plans to charge motorists for using motorways. But it seems clear from a speech by Transport Secretary John MacGregor this month that the sole motivation for the proposal is to pay for more road capacity. There was no sign that an overall environmental assessment of the scheme has been carried out, despite Whitehall guidelines requiring this to be done for all major policy initiatives.