THE Government will fail to deliver the key objectives of its 10-year Transport Plan and will not reduce congestion by its claimed margin, dealing a blow to business in the process, two major industry bodies have claimed.

The Commission for Integrated Transport (CfIT) and the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) have both published highly critical annual reports on the progress of the plan, with the CBI claiming that businesses will get no 'meaningful benefit' from the schemes to improve the UK's transport network.

It said: 'Business is very concerned at the slow progress over the last year towards the plan's original aim of delivering a transport system to rival the best in Europe. While there have been some improvements and a number of positive announcements, much more needs to be done.'

The CBI also believes that the plan is so far behind its aims that congestion will not be cut by 6% by 2010 and business will feel the full impact.

It added: 'This lack of progress also jeopardises the investment that the private sector has continued to make, both directly and in associated infrastructure, and also more generally in business operations in the expectation of improved or new transport links.'

Further criticism came from the CfIT. While the commission chairman, Professor David Begg, agreed there had been some real progress in policy development and resourcing, he said: 'There have been some real problems too. For example, we have seen stronger than expected traffic growth, slippage in delivery timescales, a growing gap between public transport fares and motoring costs, a deterioration in rail performance and slow progress on congestion charging.'

Begg argued that a full review of the use of road pricing as a congestion-busting measure should take place, and transport planning should happen at a more local level. He called for an increase in the pace of delivery of plans in order to reduce dependency on the car, and funding mechanisms must be improved in the Government's 2004 funding review.

The CBI concluded: 'We recognise that reducing road congestion may take longer than anticipated when the 10-year plan was first published. This is clearly a challenging goal in a growing economy, but it is essential if we are to have an infrastructure system that allows UK businesses to prosper.'
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