PLANS to build more than a million new homes in southern and eastern England over the next decade will result in such severe congestion that roads will have to be subject to tolls to prevent gridlock, according to the Highways Agency.

The motorway and trunk road network will struggle to cope with the huge increase in commuting and new roads will fill up with traffic as fast as they can be built.

The agency’s response to the Government’s building plans paints a grim picture of traffic queueing on many sections of the network throughout the day. It recommends that drivers be charged a toll for each mile they travel in order to reduce demand for car journeys. The agency believes that tolls may have to be imposed far sooner than the 10-15 year timescale envisaged by Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary.

The agency’s submission on the draft East of England plan, which proposes an extra 478,000 homes by 2021, suggests that a charging scheme for roads in the region may be needed in five years.

The agency says: “Conditions on the majority of the trunk road network are forecast to deteriorate significantly compared with the present situation. We would support in principle the application of demand management on the strategic road network that seeks to lock in the benefits of the transport investment schemes.”

The agency calls for the plan to be revised to include the “scenario of area-wide road user charging being in place post 2010”. A government feasibility study on tolls proposed last summer that motorists should pay £1.30 a mile to travel on the most congested roads. Other road taxes would be cut to compensate for the introduction of tolls, but millions of drivers who commute long distances would face a steep rise in their overall motoring bills. The agency forecasts that the extra homes in the East of England will generate 255,000 more car journeys per day.

The total amount of time drivers spend in traffic queues in the average morning peak hour will rise by 50 per cent to 230,000 hours by 2021. Outside the peak, time spent in queues will increase by 19 per cent. The agency voices doubts over whether the promised improvements to public transport will materialise. It cautions that congestion may be even worse than predicted unless large numbers of the new homeowners travel by bus or train.

The plan proposes more than 60 road schemes for the East of England, including widening sections of the M11, A1, A12, A14 and A120.

But the agency predicts that, even if all the schemes are approved, the rise in traffic will outstrip the growth in capacity.

“Unless traffic growth is restrained by demand management measures, it is likely that by 2021, even after widening, the northeast quadrant of the M25 will have significant levels of congestion in the peak hours, both on the main carriageway and its slip roads.”

The forecasts were supported yesterday by official figures showing a rapid growth in car ownership. The number of licensed cars rose by 800,000 last year to 27 million and the number of vans by 150,000 to 2.6 million. An agency spokesman said: “We support any measures which will reduce demand for travel, including tolls and high occupancy vehicle (car pool) lanes.” Paul Hamblin, the Campaign to Protect Rural England, said: “We need to see demand for travel managed, major improvements in public transport, and the housing numbers revised significantly downwards.”

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