The motorway age (1955–79) - Transport Policy and Planning in Great Britain - page 78

and policing of roads inquiries in these circumstances became extremely difficult and
politically embarrassing. Officials of the Department, not believing that a serious case
could be mounted against inter-urban road building, concluded that disruptions were
the product of political subversives who needed to be distinguished from 'genuine
objectors'. An internal Departmental report of 1975 recommended that information
officers should be appointed to counteract protest groups' propaganda and convince
the 'silent majority' within the population of the advantages to be gained from road
building.
In terms of expediting the roads programme, the attempt to confine planning and
inquiry procedures was ineffective and even counter-productive. By the mid-1970s
these initial stages of scheme implementation, originally scheduled for five years, had
slipped to between 10 and 12 years. The situation was rapidly becoming unmanageable.
In response the Labour Government took three important initiatives:

1 to publish a White Paper on a regular basis which would set out the Government's

policy on trunk roads as well as updating its current programme (DTp 1978a)

2 to establish a committee to review the Department's procedures for assessing

trunk road proposals, with particular regard to traffic forecasting and economic
evaluation techniques (DTp 1978b). (The Government accepted the committee's
recommendations to allow for a range of estimates of traffic growth and for an
appraisal framework which included environmental as well as economic factors.)

3 to undertake an internal review of highway inquiry procedures (DTp 1978c).

(This resulted in the appointment of inspectors independently of the Department
of Transport, the holding of a pre-inquiry meeting to identify relevant policy
matters and to agree a procedural programme.)

A balance was also attempted on the vexed question of policy. Whilst retaining
the principle that overall planning and methodology should be determined nationally
the Department agreed to the examination of the way these were applied to local
circumstances. Additional information was also to be provided to objectors, including
alternative proposals considered by the Department in coming to their preferred
version of the scheme.
These changes took a good deal of the heat out of inquiry proceedings, although
objections to the narrowness of trunk roads planning remained. The scaling down
of the roads programme and the shift in emphasis towards schemes addressing local
problems also helped. The change was such that by 1980 Ministers were referring to
'the end of motorway building' being in sight.

5.3 The Reshaping of British Railways
The Reshaping of British Railways was the title of a very important report to the
Government prepared by Dr Richard (later Lord) Beeching published in 1963 (MOT
1963). Beeching had no background in railway operations or management but was
brought in by the Conservative Government from ICI to serve as Chairman of the
British Transport Commission (BTC) and later of the British Railways Board. The
deliberate introduction of someone with a commercial perspective and used to the
disciplines of managing a large private company was a significant innovation.
The title of the report is indicative of an important policy thrust - to adapt railway
operations to the era of the motor vehicle - but it is also somewhat misleading. The