The government want to get private companies to take over the roads, and maybe introduce toll charges, as the government can't afford to look after the roads..... WHAT THE F**K ARE WE PAYING ROAD TAX FOR??? Sky news said road tax brings in £33 billion pounds a year. The government spend 9 billion. Where is the rest going??? Surely this is wrong? And the constant rise in Fuel tax of 60%!! why the heck are we allowing this to happen

The motorist and indeed the tax payer in general is being taken for a right MUG.

I rekon we are being taken for Billions a year by the government, Embezzlement springs to mind......

There is no explaination for them not having enough money to fix the roads with the income from road tax alone, so as you say, where has all the money gone?

Alas, unless someone brings the government to task, we will never know and continue to get arse raped for eternity.....

READ what was said or LISTEN. The intention is NOT that anyone will "take over and charge for" PRESENT roads. The intention is that this could happen for NEW ROADS that the companies have constructed at their expense. PersonallY I have no objection to that. It is a system that works well in many other countries. We have one around Birmingham at the moment and at certain times of the day I far prefer to pay and use that rather than be snarled up in the traffic jams on the M6.

OK, be cynical and say that once new PAYG roads are in place the authorities will lower maintenance on the existing (older) roads so they become less useable. Fair point, but we are then talking about a (very) long time in the future. If they passed legislation today it will be minimum 5 years and more like 10 before the FIRST PAYG road is in place.

Snod

We don't pay a road tax. The vehicle excise duty ceased to be hypothecated under the Finance Act of 1936.

What if some of the current motorway roads have an extra lane or 2 added.would they then become new tolled roads.

That's one of the plans I think.

"Hypothecated" please Chris, no words bigger than filter, plugs and oil in here.

Our Snod is a trusting soul,
READ what was said or LISTEN. The intention is NOT that anyone will "take over and charge for" PRESENT roads.

How many times have we heard that type of promise before, we won't close any mines, we won't privatise any part of the NHS, this that and the other are safe in our hands.
We shall see.

Sorry, Bert; maybe "ring fenced" would have been better, but I was using the language of the Ministry.

"Hypothecated" ... I thought that meant being thrown out of the Chemist's shop !!

Don't be silly; that would be deapothecated.

NEVER argue words with Chris - you will lose. I am constructing a small website with a colleague and when I read the words on our pages I look at the English and think "would Chris approve of that"? I have corrected the obvious howlers but there will be more. Hopefully we will get away with them because the website targets folk who are generally not natural English speakers

And yes Bert, I am by nature a trusting soul. I will always give people the benefit of the doubt at least twice. Done that now for near 70 years so I do not think I can change. The main point I made is however that given planning requirements none of us are likely to see any of these new roads - especially if they are totally new. Maybe just a chance of the new road is made from robbed hard shoulders (like they did recently on the M62 as it joins the Manchester ring road) or other lane expansions.

Snod

Is there anything the Tories wont sell off? Someone's making a killing out of all these privatisations, and it ain't the British Taxpayer!