“Faced with the necessity to generate new funds for infrastructure, this news demonstrates that government is being innovative in its thinking.

“We would hope that work on enhancing the A14 starts sooner rather than later and certainly before 2018.”

Has road charging now become essential?

Unsurprisingly, opinions differ surrounding this question.

Paul Watters, head of public affairs at the AA, says drivers do not regard current road charging initiatives to be successful – and they don’t want any more.

He explains: “They consider they pay enough tax and these schemes do little to ease congestion.

“Just take a look at the Dartford Crossing or central London charging zone.

“Consequently, it’s not sensible for more road charging schemes to be introduced – there’s no public trust in who will run and operate the roads and what the deal is.

“More than 80% of those surveyed in a recent poll carried out by the AA stated that they distrust the Government with their money should road charging be introduced.

“Some new road infrastructure schemes are desperately needed and so tolls may be supported but only if the deal is a fair one.

“At Dartford that was the arrangement with the bridge but the drivers were betrayed – once it was paid for, the Government kept taking the toll.”

Jonathan Pearce, marketing manager of Northgate Vehicle Hire, which has more than 52,000 vans on rental nationwide, welcomed the fact that the government is now actively looking at ways of resolving congestion issues.

He says: “For businesses of all sizes, road charging is a direct charge to them and this can be difficult to budget for.

“Many businesses, especially SMEs, often find themselves having to pass additional charges on to customers, making them less competitive.

“The other option is for them to absorb the costs themselves which leads to their margins becoming even tighter.

“But Britain’s road infrastructure faces many issues like potholes to ever-increasing usage and this is resulting in more congestion.

"It’s for these reasons that I was pleased to see there was an investment focus on roads in the latest coalition budget.”