HC Deb 12 November 1979 vol 973 c454W
Mr. Alton

asked the Minister of Transport what steps he has taken to discover how many miles of motorway and trunk road construction has peen done on inaccurate and inflated predictions similar to those for the Hyde bypass.

Mr. Kenneth Clarke

The design of the Hyde bypass was based on forecasts for 1988. It was planned to be part of a network to include the Denton relief road, now under construction, and the Manchester outer ring road. Until this network is complete the Hyde bypass will inevitably be used to less than capacity. So will other roads similarly built as part of incomplete routes or networks. Traffic forecasting is, inevitably, an uncertain matter, but, as table 16.2 in the Leitch report shows, the uncertainty is not all one way.