Anyone who uses Britain’s motorways will have witnessed huge improvement projects paid for by the taxpayer.

Most of my own experience of this involves the M62 between Manchester and Leeds, and the northern end of the M1.

There have been signs up telling drivers that the M62 was becoming a “managed motorway” or a “smart motorway,” with the installation of new traffic controls, electronic direction indicators and variable speed limit signs, dozens of cameras to monitor traffic, a system to divert drivers onto hard shoulders at times of heavy traffic and more. 

In control rooms around the country traffic levels will be observed, speeders spotted, speed limits raised and lowered.

In my part of the world the improvements on a single 20-mile stretch of the M62 between junctions 25 to 30 bypassing Leeds cost £136 million.

Another, on the western side of the Pennines, also on the M62, was flagged up by the Highways Agency as a scheme to ease congestion between Manchester and West Yorkshire at a cost to the taxpayer of £208m, all paid to private companies carrying out the work, of course.

More than 4,000 miles of motorway are being improved across the country, so the overall cost is billions.

Now we know why. The motorways are to be stealthily privatised.

Taxpayers’ cash is being used to install a motorway management system which is to be handed to the private sector if the Tories win the next general election. 

The improvements for which we are paying include structures which will enable the installation of toll booths. 

The Tories plan to turn our motorways into profit-making machines for their privateer pals.

The start of the privatisation process is contained in the Infrastructure Bill being examined by the Commons transport select committee.

The Bill tells them that selling off our motorways to the private sector is worth £111 billion. 

It doesn’t say how much it will be worth to the private companies that take ownership of our roads. Or how much cash they will make out of motorists.

But the immediate obscenity is that our taxes are being used to improve the motorway system ahead of privatisation, so that the profiteers don’t have to pay for it themselves. 

They’ll just pick up the profits from charging road users for using the highways we have paid to build and improve.

Most of us have felt the effect of the franchise system through which our rail network has been privatised — higher fares, unreliable services and trains packed because of lack of carriages.

Well, prepare yourselves for the franchising of our roads. The franchises are expected to be awarded on a regional basis. 

The companies that win them will have the right to charge us for the privilege of driving on roads which were built out of our money, using a road management system installed at our expense.

Public and Commercial Service union PCS says the transfer from private to public will begin with the transformation of the government’s Highways Agency into a government company (Govco).

The union says this would pave the way for more road tolls and could lead to the strategic road network, which includes major roads and motorways, being split into regional franchises similar to the privatised railways.

The union believes a Govco is being used as a staging post to full privatisation of our roads because out-and-out privatisation would be a hugely unpopular policy and would be particularly damaging in the run-up to a general election.

The House of Commons transport select committee said in March that it did not believe the government had made the case for the plan, which is currently before Parliament as part of the Infrastructure Bill.

A Commons motion (EDM 241) says MPs think there is “no desire among the British public for a costly privatised road network” — so it’s being done step by step, starting with the Govco.

PCS general secretary Mark Serwotka said: “We believe the government is taking the first steps towards a full sell-off of our roads and motorways and this is being done without any public debate and very little scrutiny.”

To the motorist, a road is a road, is a road.

To the Tories a road can be assessed only in terms of its potential for making profit — just like every other facility or condition, be it people’s health, need for heat and shelter, food or need to travel.