The Government has indicated that it will focus more on day-to-day maintenance for UK motorways and A-roads in future rather than investing in major road infrastructure projects with spiralling costs.

The DfT said maintenance and renewals are likely to be a growing and essential element of the roads programme going forwards

The suggestion comes after a Transport Committee’s report on Strategic Road Investment revealed persistent delays and overspends on a “catalogue of large-scale schemes”.

The cross-party Committee’s report examined the reasons behind issues that affected National Highways’ multi-billion-pound portfolios of projects to improve and grow the Strategic Road Network – which spans 4,300 miles of motorways and A-roads.

The Committee argued that money for the next Road Investment Strategy should be prioritised on renewal and maintenance of the strategic road network, rather than “costly enhancements that have been prone to delay and overspend”.

It’s a move backed by drivers; witnesses to the inquiry said research showed road users would also prefer the day-to-day upkeep of existing roads to be prioritised.

The Department for Transport (DfT) agreed in principle with this point and said almost half of funding for RIS2 (for 2020-2025), totalling £27.4bn, was budgeted for maintenance work.

It commented: “Maintenance and renewals to keep the network in a safe and serviceable condition and minimise the need for more structural, intrusive repairs, are likely to be a growing and essential element of the roads programme.”

It added: “The Government is currently developing its investment priorities for RIS3 (2025-30). More details will be set out in the draft RIS3 later in 2023.”

The Transport Committee applauded this decision – which it said was a “wiser course of action than pouring billions into major enhancements that have been beset by delays and soaring costs, and it better reflects motorists’ interests”.

But Committee Chair Iain Stewart MP added that it did not accept the Department’s excuse that risks to these schemes were somehow unforeseeable – and said the NAO and others had made clear this wasn’t the case.

DfT urged to explore options for managing future congestion levels

The Transport Committee inquiry also revealed concerns over whether the switch to electric vehicles would happen swiftly enough to mitigate the added carbon emissions that will come from the predicted increase in traffic on the SRN.

It’s advised the Government to model and report on options for managing future congestion levels rather than only enabling its growth via expansions of the SRN.

But in the DfT response, Ministers rejected this point and said the Government’s role was “not to stop people travelling”.

The response added: “The current trajectory set out in the Carbon Budget Delivery Plan (CBDP), published in March 2023, presents a credible pathway to net zero without restricting growth.”

Iain Stewart responded: “It was disappointing that the Government seems unwilling to explore even the possibility that investing in alternative, less carbon-intensive transport projects could limit the increases in congestion on major roads that it appears to believe are inevitable.”

Engagement with sub-national transport bodies

Elsewhere, the report said the Government should codify a requirement in National Highways’ licence for it to formally engage with regional transport bodies when planning future RIS portfolios.

This would enable National Highways to benefit from local knowledge and better identify risks to individual schemes.

The DfT said National Highways was already required to engage with regional bodies, but that it would “consider” including a provision for this when its licence next due for renewal.

It also indicated it was open to measures to boost transparency about the progress of schemes within the Road Investment Strategy portfolios – witnesses had said it could be challenging to track the updates, which are published annually, and at different times of the year, by the Office for Rail and Road (ORR), DfT and National Highways.

And the Committee’s Iain Stewart added: “Attempting to analyse the status of various schemes often felt like navigating a spaghetti junction, with key documents either not available or only from disparate sources.”

MPs on the Committee had called for a “live” project dashboard to be published, providing up-to-date information on all projects in the RIS portfolios, including their costs, planning status and expected completion dates.

The Government said a “genuinely live” dashboard would not be “practical” but promised to “work closely with National Highways and the ORR, to explore the opportunity for more frequent public project reporting in one place”.

New infrastructure plans must be aligned with net zero 

Campaigners say a lack of net zero clarity in the draft NNNPS could lead to legal challenges to development consent orders for new projects

MPs have separately warned the DfT that new planning policies for major schemes need clarifying against net zero laws, based on the carbon emissions that would be produced during and after their construction.

The Transport Committee analysed the Government’s proposals to revamp planning policies for nationally significant road and rail infrastructure projects, as revealed in a draft revised National Networks National Policy Statement (NNNPS), published by the DfT earlier this year.

Campaigners and industry groups responding to the inquiry said the draft NNNPS fails to adequately set out how new infrastructure projects should be assessed on the carbon emissions they will produce. They argued this could lead to legal challenges to development consent orders as the Government wouldn’t be able to explain how an order would align with the legally binding net zero goals.

The draft NNNPS does not take note of the Climate Change Committee’s recommended that new projects should only be permitted if they “meaningfully support cost-effective delivery of net zero and climate adaptation”.

There was also criticism of the way that the draft NNNPS permits “residual” emissions – which result during construction of new infrastructure – while lacking a clear definition or criteria of what “residual” means.

In its report, the Transport Committee has now urged ministers to redraft sections that would be used to determine whether major new projects are compatible with net zero legislation, based on the carbon emissions that would be produced during and after their construction.

MPs also made recommendations on the way DfT looks at different options for projects and road-traffic demand forecasts, and how to make its decision-making more transparent. There are also recommendations on biodiversity, active travel, and restructuring the various national policy statements for transport.

Transport Committee Chair Iain Stewart MP said: “Flaws in the current NNNPS are partly to blame for the perennial problem of why major infrastructure projects become delayed by legal challenges, so there is a lot riding on this work to produce a new set of planning policies.

“But a number of witnesses, including some who themselves launched legal challenges against such projects, told us the current draft won’t provide the legal certainty that DfT needs. One of the Government’s objectives in revising the NNNPS is to balance the net zero goals with infrastructure projects that could increase greenhouse gas emissions. Given the concerns we heard, we urge the Government to amend the draft NNNPS to provide a definition of ‘residual’ emissions and to state explicitly its understanding of the legal precedent for permitting major infrastructure schemes which result in increases in emissions.”

He also called for the draft NNNPS to promote more scrutiny of the way the Government examines the options for building new road or rail schemes – and show the evidence behind its forecasts that more congestion is inevitable if we don’t build more motorways and A-roads.