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James Durkin
 
CAPTAINS of industry and Berkshire MPs met government minister Gillian Merron this week to plead for £2 billion improvements to the area's "crumbling transport system".

The powerful group, including Reading West MP Martin Salter and Thames Valley Economic Partnership chief executive, Shaun Whittaker, say workers are finding travel increasingly frustrating and it is costing big business millions.

Mr Salter warned the government would be "cutting off its nose to spite its face" if it did nothing while the six largest Thames Valley businesses - directly and indirectly employing 23,500 - pay more in taxes than is needed for improvements.

He said: "There is no immediate threat these businesses will leave to set up elsewhere in Europe, but we need to be looking at this issue now.

"It is clear that for our region to retain its premiership status in the UK economic league much more needs to be done to break the transport gridlock."

According to the Thames Valley Economic Partnership - which supports businesses including Readingbased Microsoft, the Oracle Corporation, Cisco Systems, Hutchison 3G and PricewaterhouseCoopers - Thames Valley employers spent a £8.25 million last year on private hire cars to Heathrow Airport because of poor transport links.

During Tuesday's meeting the group, which included Maidenhead MP Theresa May and Slough's Fiona Mactaggart, set out six key areas for investment before transport minister Ms Merron.

*Upgrade Reading railway station to remove bottlenecks on Great Western mainline.

*Create new 30-minute rail link to Heathrow from Reading via Bracknell, Wokingham and Staines.

*Create additional direct rail link to Heathrow airport from the west via the Great Western mainline.

*Create better north-south links on Thames Valley's roads, especially the M3 to M4, and M4 to M40.

*Widen the M4, on a phased basis, between junction 5 and 12.

*Create a Thames Valley rapid transit service - using buses to link key business centres.

Mr Whittaker said: "Access to Heathrow is getting worse rather than better. There is no direct rail access from the Thames Valley to the airport, and it is not unusual for a 25 mile road journey to take two hours."