IN AXING two of the most controversial major road schemes, but approving five others and putting off decisions on others, the government has managed to please no-one.

Both environmentalists and the roads lobby are upset.

But what is significant about this confusing piecemeal approach is that no overall integrated transport policy is signalled by it.

True, the car-led strategy that broadly sought to match road building with vehicle growth is in reverse - even its authors, the Conservatives, were forced to turn around.

And Labour has long pledged an integrated transport policy while espousing its "green" credentials.

But in yesterday's roads review neither were clearly outlined.

How could they be when, for instance, one major scheme, the Salisbury by-pass, was scrapped mainly on environmental grounds and another, the Birmingham North Relief Road, was approved because it is a "nationally strategic route" though it will be mostly on green-belt land?.

If there was any body that was pleased yesterday, it was probably the Treasury reaping the savings that the axed schemes will deliver to the Exchequer.

Cynics might even say that this was the government's main motive, rather than that of laying the foundations for a clear transport policy.

But a policy is needed.

This method of putting in and lifting pieces out of the transport jigsaw needs to be replaced by a clear overall strategy.

And the government would do well to head that way by directing the savings from its road cuts not towards filling its own financial black holes, but to improving public transport - and building "green" roads, like our own M65, that ease congestion and pollution and deliver economic gains.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.