Transport Insights

I have further detail of National Highways’ failure to deliver the actions it pledged to carry out under its “enhanced safety plan” for 2024-25, with confirmation that it delivered only 15 of a promised 24 road safety schemes, less than two-thirds.

To recap, National Highways’ enhanced safety plan, which regulator the Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) demanded that the government-owned company “transparently” produce to improve its failing safety record, but which both bodies have continued to hide from the public, was said to have included 43 additional actions to be delivered during the year.

These comprised 24 road safety schemes, eight communications campaigns, and 11 “working with others” actions.

In March, the ORR revealed that the company had only delivered 22 of the 43 actions, including just five safety schemes. In July it revealed that only 33 were delivered during the year, but did not reveal how many of these were safety schemes.

The regulator has now disclosed to me under the Freedom of Information Act that National Highways delivered just 15 road safety scheme during the year against the target of 24.

The vast majority of the other types of action were complete – all eight communications campaigns and 10 out of 11 “working with others” actions, with the remaining action said to be dependant on the Roads Policing Review.

This means that although National Highways delivered three quarters of the actions, it delivered less than two-thirds of the safety schemes it promised.

What the regulator has never clarified is how it assessed whether these actions, which were said to be “additional” to what the company had already planned for the year were genuinely additional rather than part of existing plans.

As I pointed out in July, it does seem to have now dropped this claim.