Budget 2011 - Transport implications

  • Local councils are to receive an extra £100M to fix potholes
  • Fuel duty dropped by 1ppl and proposed 5ppl rise in April defered
  • Increased tax on company cars
  • Freeze/review of Air Passenger Duty, which will now also be due on private flights
  • £200M invested in regional rail routes

Responses to the budget announcement have understandably been mixed, with motoring groups and rural drivers reliant on their cars welcoming the cut in fuel duty, while sustainable transport advocates decry the apparant u-turn on the "greenest government ever" aspiration.

In addition, there have been mixed reactions to planning reform, which receive two different and potentially contradictory formulations in the budget document:

1) "introduce a powerful new presumption in favour of sustainable development, so that the default is "yes" (p.3)

2) "introduce a new presumption in favour of sustainable development so that the default answer to development is "yes" (p. 29)

The first formulation seems specify a presumption in favour of sustainable development, while the second seems to apply the "default yes" concept to all development.

See what you think at: http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/2011budget.htm