Thread: Rothschild pitches motorway privatisation plan

NM Rothschild pitches motorway privatisation plan


by Robert Watts and Dominic O’Connell
Times Online - 2009-08-30





A radical plan to raise £100 billion by privatising the motorway network has been presented to the three main political parties by NM Rothschild, the influential investment bank.

Rothschild, an architect of several privatisations, made its pitch in the weeks running up to the summer recess on July 21, Whitehall sources said. Bankers told leading politicians that the sale of the roads overseen by the Highways Agency — all motorways and most big trunk roads — could help revive battered public finances.

Toll-road companies and infrastructure funds would compete to operate and maintain stretches of the network.

In one version of the scheme, the government would pay for upkeep through a system of “shadowâ€

Yeah, go ahead and sell your infrastructure just like we are doing in this country.