Battle on car use over, says Macdonald
By Rachel Sylvester
 

THE Government has conceded defeat in its battle to break Britain's "car culture" by admitting that vehicle ownership will increase and that it is unrealistic to try to force drivers off the roads.

 In an interview with The Telegraph, Lord Macdonald of Tradeston, the transport minister, said that the Government was no longer determined to cut traffic levels across Britain because it did not believe that this was the best way to reduce pollution.

 Creating cleaner engines was a more efficient and realistic way of improving the environment than simply reducing the number of cars on the roads, he said. Vehicles should also be made affordable to people in all sections of society even if that meant an increase in drivers. He said: "You can either try to reduce traffic overall or you can say that it's more rational to try to reduce the damaging output of traffic - pollution and congestion. We think that is more realistic."

 The minister's comments, less than a week after he was put in day-to-day charge of the transport portfolio, mark a radical shift inthe Government's approach to drivers. John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, who insisted that traffic should be reduced, was accused by the Conservatives of "waging war" on motorists. 

The new approach will almost certainly lead to more money being invested in road-building programmes. Lord Macdonald has already approved a £280 million package of 18 local road schemes and commissioned the Highways Agency to identify 100 traffic "hotspots" for future investment. 

The transport minister said the Government was now prepared for an increase in car ownership. He said: "One third of people don't have cars and if cars become more affordable more people will want to own them. That in itself should not be the primary problem." He argued that there were "issues of social exclusion" about trying to reduce the number of cars on the road.

 He said: "A lot of the people in most need of a car - living in rural areas or disadvantaged people on housing estates, single parents trying to  juggle complicated lives - they're the people who at the moment can't afford one. We would hope that our policies might make owning a car more affordable." He said technology was a better tool than traffic targets for reducing pollution. "Technology is our great ally. It can already reduce pollution by 50 to 75 per cent."

 Lord Macdonald said the Government agreed with a report by the Commission for Integrated Transport which said that national traffic reduction targets were not "the best tool" to tackle pollution or congestion. He said: "We cannot see that there are courses of action to reduce the number of  people owning cars or driving their cars except for investment in public transport."

 Bernard Jenkin, shadow transport spokesman, said the Government was "blowing in the wind" on the issue. He said: "This shows that the first two and a half years of the Government's so-called integrated transport policy has been based on a complete fallacy - that it is not necessary to invest in road improvements."

 Tony Juniper, policy director of Friends of the Earth, accused the Government of performing a "U-turn". He said: "Before the election, the Government promised road traffic reduction. Now we are being promised more congestion and a bigger contribution to climate change."