Roads for Prosperity (often incorrectly called Road to Prosperity) was a controversial white paper published by the Conservative government in the United Kingdom in 1989; detailing the 'largest road building programme for the UK since the Romans' produced in response to rapid increases in car ownership and use over the previous decade. It embraced what Margaret Thatcher had described as 'the great car economy', although implementation led to widespread road protests, and many of the schemes contained within it were abandoned by 1996.

Overview

The proposals included 500 road schemes at an estimated cost of £23 billion based on predicted traffic growth of 142% by 2025. It would have involved the doubling of the trunk road capacity with around 150 bypasses being built to meet the predicted demand. According to The Times, the road network expanded by 24000 mi between 1985-1995 and then by only 1.6% between 1996-2006; no definition of "the road network" is provided. Schemes included the following: