More than 150 miles of the most congested motorways and trunk roads will be widened, including making parts of the M25 around London five lanes in each direction and adding lanes to stretches of the M1, M11, M62, M18, A1, A12, A14 and A120.

But Alistair Darling, the Transport Secretary, rejected all the most environmentally damaging schemes, including plans for bypasses through the green belt in the South Downs and West Midlands.

The emphasis instead was on increasing the capacity on existing roads, including plans to direct drivers on to the hard shoulder at busy times on the M42 and motorways in South and West Yorkshire.

Mr Darling also announced a steering group of business leaders, motoring organisations and environmental campaigners to lead a feasibility study on introducing road tolls.

He published a discussion paper on managing the road network over the next 30 years which gave the clearest indication to date that the Government eventually intends to impose tolls across Britain.

The document, Managing Our Roads, states: “(Road tolls) could promote better choice, both for where we live and work, and for how we travel. Motorists would benefit from more reliable and faster journey times, and reduced stress.”

Mr Darling ignored a recommendation from government consultants that tolls should be introduced in the most congested areas by 2011.

The consultants argued that widened motorways, such as the £1.7 billion scheme to turn the M25 into a four-lane highway for most of its length, would generate more traffic and become as congested within a few years unless drivers were charged to use them.

Mr Darling refused to set a date for imposing tolls, saying only that they were likely to be needed at some point over the next 20 to 30 years.

Stephen Joseph, director of the public transport lobby group Transport 2000, who was appointed to the steering group, said: “Without a firm programme to introduce charging the Government will be sentencing motorists to unending jams and many communities, especially near roads, will face increased pressures for new roads-based development and urban sprawl.”

But he welcomed Mr Darling’s decision to reject five bypasses on the A27 along the South Coast, including a dual carriageway across watermeadows and ancient woodland near Arundel in West Sussex, where anti-road protesters had begun building tunnels and treehouses on the proposed route.

Mr Darling ordered the Highways Agency to produce less environmentally damaging ideas for reducing the congestion that reduces traffic to a crawl on the A27 at peak times.

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