Britain’s roads should be ‘beautiful’ rather than ‘crass, ugly and ubiquitous’
This is a lovely vignette of an approach worthy of applause amongst all the gloom and doom in the press. I have met John Hayes a few times and I like his spin on a number of things. I don’t seek to make a big political point but I do think this is an insightful little departure in favour for once of the vernacular rather than the “standard”. The story tells us:
Residents will be given the power to help decide the design, material and even colour of road projects to make them “beautiful” rather than “brutal, crass and ugly”, a transport minister will say.
John Hayes, the roads minister, is expected to say he wants to return to the approach of the Georgians and Victorians and ensure that a new generation of roads are built in “harmony” with the countryside.
He will to draw on the Prince of Wales’s work on housing as inspiration for the government’s plans to build £15 billion worth of new roads by the end of the decade.
Mr Hayes will announce plans to appoint a design council, including rural campaign groups, to “enhance the beauty of our countryside” while involving residents in design planning.
Speaking in London, Mr Hayes will say: “When there’s no long-term commitment to funding, themes always an incentive to strip out everything you can and get the price as low as possible.
“Narrow that bridge; reduce that embankment; whether you need quite so many trees – in the great road building era of the sixties and seventies, such thinking was endemic. I don’t believe in gold-plating; but I do believe in green plating.”