Slow progress in improving the UK’s creaking transport system is seriously damaging small businesses across the country, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has claimed.

The CBI said that sluggish improvements to the rail and road infrastructure is hindering many firms who need fast and efficient transport links.

The business lobby group said that the government needed to commit at least £205 billion towards improving transport over the next 10 years to make significant progress.

This massive figure is £70 billion more than the £180 billion earmarked for the government’s original 10-year plan, which was set up when Labour came to power in 1997.

According to the CBI, without this level of investment, delivering a transport system to rival the best in Europe remains a “dim prospect.”

Studies over the past year have shown that small businesses suffer regular dips in productivity and output because of delays on trains and traffic congestion.

Small firms, who cannot afford to be without key staff, lose millions of pounds a year when the transport system grinds to a halt due to poor weather conditions or mechanical failure.

Digby Jones, the director general of the CBI, said that we have a first-rate economy and it deserves a first-rate transport system.

“The original 10 year plan was full of promise but four years and £50 billion later there remain profound deficiencies in the UK transport system. The catalogue of transport nightmares gets ever longer.

“An efficient transport system is vital for the continued success of individual companies, for jobs and for the prospects of the wider UK economy.

“Firms must be able to get their goods to market and people to work,” he said.