The AA’s Edmund King believes Vehicle Excise Duty (VED) should be used to create a national protected fund that can be used to pay for future road improvements, such as the repair of potholes. “You need all the money to be ring fenced so it is spent on maintenance,” he said.
“If you had a fund from VED that could only be spent on maintenance it would give you the long term funding and also allow you to invest more in the technology that is needed to repair the roads,” reports the Daily Telegraph.
It’s a widely held view across the motoring industry that taxes on drivers – which are set to become more profitable for the Treasury than those on smokers – should be used to improve and maintain the roads.
VED was formerly hypothecated, meaning all the proceeds of a tax are spent on one particular purpose. The money now goes straight into general taxation instead, with the biggest expense being the NHS.
But a decision in 1937 by Neville Chamberlain’s government to abolish a ring fence on vehicle excise duty (VED) that dedicated its revenues to road maintenance would preface decades of decay and underfunding. Today there are said to be more potholes on British roads than craters on the surface of the Moon. Last year, drivers reported a record 1 million potholes across the country, according to comparison site Confused.com. The AA estimates the cost of fixing the damage can easily amount to £5,000 per pothole.
(Pic – Instarmac)
