CHARGING has to be introduced on Britain's busiest roads if congestion is to be tackled according to a new report from the Institute of Directors.

The study accuses the Government's 10-Year Transport Plan of failing to ease traffic chaos and warns that without road pricing and investment in new roads, traffic jams are unlikely to ease and could be 'substantially' worse by 2010.”More roads and road pricing - the way to go?”, says that road traffic is set to increase by 17% by 2010.

Graeme Leach, the IoD's chief economist and author of the report, said: 'Government has to face up to a simple truth - in the face of strong opposition from the environment lobby - that more road capacity will have to be built.'

Last week, a report from Reed revealed that the average UK worker loses 19 minutes' working time a week because of traffic jams.

'The IoD does not believe the Government can achieve its targets for reducing congestion without widespread road pricing. But even this is unlikely to be sufficient. We cannot go on running our road network like the old Soviet economy, with rationing by queuing.'