§ Mr. Warrenasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if it is his 596W intention to designate further experimental areas in connection with the passage of the Passenger Vehicles (Experimental Areas) Bill; and if he will investigate the advantage and need for such designation in the East Sussex county area.
§ Mr. HoramI have been asked to reply.
As far as Government-sponsored experiments are concerned, I have no proposals to designate any further areas beyond those which I would designate as a result of the studies done in the four areas of the Government-sponsored programme. The resources, particularly of specialised research staff, are not available to monitor and control a larger programme of experiments in depth. If any county council wishes to conducts its own experiments under the provisions of the Bill, I shall certainly be prepared to consider proposals, provided that they will add to the kind of evidence on the benefits and problems of unorthodox kinds of transport that the Government programme is designed to collect.