Transport Insights

It’s worth returning to Tuesday’s announcement about rail and road projects, in which the government falsely claimed to have green-lit 28 local road schemes, while actually confirming two, for what transport secretary Heidi Alexander told MPs about the schemes that are not (yet) getting funding.

We know expectations were raised. And, sadly, we know there was no plan to pay for them. Indeed, schemes that formed part of the previous government’s major road network programme, all of which were meant to be in construction by now, have not progressed as expected. Almost half are yet to reach the outline business case stage, despite being in the programme for 6 years. Years of dither and delay wasted everyone’s time and left communities in limbo. This, I must say, is the tragic legacy of the farcical ‘Network North’ announcement made by the previous Prime Minister.

I have probably covered the major road network (MRN), which ran alongside large local majors (LLM), more closely than any other journalist, noting how it was supposed to be part of a National Roads Fund paid for hypothecated Vehicle Excise Duty, but the money was never there and schemes just dribbled out.

I also wrote extensively about how the Network North shambles promised to ensure that schemes happened but that really only meant potentially paying the full cost at outline business case stage for schemes that had got significantly more expensive since.

The Department for Transport also suggested that £1.6bn MRN/LLM funding – focused on the North and Midlands – could continue into the next parliament (now the current parliament).

And Labour came along and announced some legacy schemes, co-opting them into its “Plan for Change”.

Alexander criticised the Tories for having “spent years developing plans for large local schemes and major road network projects that were neither affordable nor got off the ground, adding: “We can’t go on like this.”

Many of the schemes that were not being taken forward in some form, “now need to be reviewed,” she said.

My officials will work with councils on which schemes to prioritise and I will update the House on next steps once those discussions have taken place.

What she didn’t say was what the budget is for MRN and LLM schemes will be for the next four years. It is possible that it may be enough to pay for the 28 schemes that are in construction or were recently confirmed, or have continued development funding.

For the last group of 16 schemes still being hoping to get a slice of a pie whose size remains a mystery and the two just announced, one thing is clear: until their full business cases have been signed off by the DfT and the local funding put in place, there is no certainty that they will go ahead.