Scripts

Monday 8 October 2012

£6 Million for Cycling in Scotland, £5 Billion Wasted on a Road

After much campaigning pedal-on-parliament in Scotland has secured a paltry £6 million to spend on cycle-infrastructure (aka paint, HowTheBritishDoCycleLanes). Essentially nothing more than crumbs-from-the-table

At least it's something, but pales in comparison to the budgets of the big road building schemes. Worse still is this government is bending over backwards to try and find private investment for new roads (PFI). One such proposed scheme would see a private developer fund the expansion of the A14, with a initial outlay of £1 billion, but over the years it would seen a returned profit of over £5 Billion, channelled from tax-payers.

So what does £6 million look like compared to a massive mound of cash, that is £5 billion, that the government are happy to gift to profiteering road builders, aka rich friends of politicians?

Pretty sickening eh, when you think this is pure profit for a private company?

With 26 million households in the UK thats around £190 per house hold. So as you are all feeling a bit skint in these austere times, just dig a bit deeper and smile as you hand over 190 sheets to those lovely profiteers in exchange for some more concrete, and be thankful for a lazy* government that can't be arse to expand/build the road itself.

* possibly corrupt government