§ Mr. PollardTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions what plans the Government have to improve safety measures on(a) trunk roads and (b) roads extensively used by heavy goods vehicles. [7098]
§ Mr. JamiesonIn March of last year, the Government published their road safety strategy and casualty reduction targets for 2010 with the document "Tomorrow's roads: safer for everyone". At the same time, the Highways Agency published a Strategic Plan for improving safety on the trunk road network in England. The documents describe the measures to improve road safety that will be a mixture of education, engineering and enforcement measures.
The Government's current targeted programme of improvements to trunk roads contains proposals for some 25 bypasses that will remove through traffic, particularly heavy goods vehicles, from towns and villages. Additional schemes may well be added as a result of the programme of multi-modal studies currently being undertaken. The Government have also given the go-ahead for a further 23 bypass schemes on local authority roads in the last two years as part of the Local Transport Settlement. Bids for further schemes are currently being considered and decisions will be announced in December.