Transport Insights

Local news outlets in the North East are reporting a potentially huge scandal over a recently cancelled National Highways scheme, with a shocking tale of deceit potentially involving the government-owned company, the previous (Tory) government and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).

The Newcastle Chronicle reports that:

Department for Transport staff were ordered to stop working on plans to dual the A1 in Northumberland back in 2021 – three years before it was approved by the Conservative Government, leaked documents have revealed. 

And:

…during the 2021 Spending Review the funding for the scheme was “withdrawn” and the plan was “deprioritised”. The report adds: “The funding decision was not made public, but we instructed National Highways to cease work on the scheme.”

In another twist on this story, the Chronicle notes that the scheme was included in the Network North announcement following the cancellation of the northern leg of HS2.

This goes some way to explaining something that baffled me at the time. In October 2023 I reported that:

…the A1 scheme is described in the current RIS programme as a ‘committed’ scheme. As part of the process of seeking a development consent order (DCO), National Highways submitted a document to the Planning Inspectorate (PINS) asserting that the scheme was funded.

However, as Highways has reported, the scheme has been held up by repeated delays from ministers. So far there remains an unpublished recommendation from PINS.

In its annual assessment of National Highways 2022-23, the Office of Rail and Road noted that the scheme should have started work during that year but was delayed by ministers’ postponement of the DCO decision.

At that time, National Highways told me that the situation remained the same, with the public being told that the scheme was waiting for a decision on the DCO (Development Consent Order), which ministers were repeatedly postponing.

So, it looks as if both the Tory government and National Highways used these postponements to hide from the Planning Inspectorate the fact that the scheme was no longer funded.

The DCO decision was postponed many times over the years, most notably in December 2022 after it had allegedly fallen foul of the spending review the previous month.

They then pretended to green-light the scheme last year, in terms of the DCO decision, by which time the cost had doubled, only for Labour to cancel it.

The BBC reported in January that close to £70m had already been spent on the scheme, presumably before National Highways was told to shelve it.

I’ve asked the ORR what it was told along the way…