ROAD RECEIPTS IN GREAT BRITAIN

Dominion, Volume 30, Issue 143, 13 March 1937, Page 23

ROAD RECEIPTS IN GREAT BRITAIN

How Money is Spent How the. British Minister of Transport spent £30,480,176, received from the taxation of road transport during the financial year ended March 31, 1936, i.s shown in a Blue Book published by the Stationery Office recently. The Minister’s report on the administration of the Road Fund shows that the gross receipts were down by over two million pounds on the previous financial year, although the number of vehicles licensed increased by 6.6 per cent. (The explanation is the reduction in licence duty which came into force on January 1, 1935). But. out of the gross receipts Mr. llore-Belisha had to allow the Treasury to retain £5,000,000, so that the Hoad Fund actually received about £26,000,000. Of this sum £7,500,000 went to grants for the maintenance and minor improvements of Class 1. roads (of which there are 27,016 miles in Great Britain), Class 2 roads (of which there are 1.6,855 miles), and bridges. Almost £4,000,000 went, in grants for major improvements and other road purposes, and £6,500,000 was allowed to the Treasury, to be paid out again to local authorities for maintaining unclassified roads. Collecting motor taxation cost £600,000 ami driving test examiners’ salaries and expenses were £73,000. Experimental work swallowed £48,000. The balance to the credit of the Road Fund at the end of the year was £5,348,335. mostly invested in Government securities; the commitments were nearly £30.000,000. Grants to local authorities toward the cost of road works varied between 60 per cent, and 85 per cent., but the Road Fund is bearing tin; whole burden of the reconstruction work, estimated at £4,500,000, in the crofter counties of .Scotland. Programmes submitted up io March

31. 1936, by local authorities under the 1935-1940 Five-Year Road Plan envisaged an expenditure of £137,000,000. At that date schemes estimated to cost: £25,000,000 had been accepted in principle for grant purposes, the Fund’s contribution to which would be approximately £15,500.000. The report shows that 40,500 miles oi road, out of a total of 178.000. were subjected to the 30 m.p.h. restriction.