Transport Insights

Claire Mercer of Smart Motorways Kill has also concluded that the claim that the Department for Transport (DfT) is still “assuring” 14 smart motorway evaluation reports going back three years is a fiction – and that roads minister Simon Lightwood lied to her about this.

Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed, along with Alexandru Murgeanu, on a smart motorway stretch of the M1 in 2019, co-organised the protest outside the DfT last month calling for the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports to be released.

Lightwood wrote to her at that time to defend the suppression of the reports, saying:

…it is right that we take the time to fully assure findings. This process is ongoing

As I wrote on Monday, when challenged over the “process” by Mercer’s MP, Sarah Champion, Lightwood resorted to claiming that a “wider assurance”, rather than the formal assurance for each scheme was happening. This is clearly a fiction.

Mercer’s solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, also wrote to the DfT to challenge the process. It told them that the reports:

are currently completing the final governance and approval stages

adding:

it is right that the department take the time to fully understand and assure findings prior to publication

Again, the pretence that a formal assurance process is happening has evaporated.

Mercer has seen through this and has not forgotten what Lightwood told her. She said:

It is clear that genuine assurance of these documents was completed years ago and that Lightwood has merely put up a smokescreen to try to bury bad news.

As he made this claim directly to me in writing, someone widowed by government policy, I have sadly reached the conclusion that I have been lied to by a government minister.

She added:

It looks as if the DfT under Labour is looking for a way to bury bad news, once again.

The simple fact is if the reports contained good news about Smart Motorways they would have been released by now.

I approached the DfT for comment and specifically asked it to clarify whether the “assurance process” that the Lightwood claimed to be ongoing is a formal one under an existing process or an ad hoc one that it has invented for this set of reports.

I got nothing beyond the same forms of words I have already reported and a comment from spokesperson:

Smart motorways remain our safest roads in terms of deaths or serious injuries. We continue to monitor their performance and have significantly invested in safety features, including rolling out over 150 more emergency areas on smart motorways, to give users peace of mind.

 While our roads are amongst the safest in the world, we are making them even safer with our forthcoming Road Safety Strategy, the first in more than a decade.

I have noted that officials are unwilling to claim that a genuine assurance process is actually taking place – as this would be lying.

Mercer also noted that of various people chasing release of the POPEs, I was the only person who had been given any kind of timescale – my around Christmas.

But noting that this is only 10 working days away, she doubted whether this would happen.

On the one hand, they would probably like to string the process out.

On the other hand, it would be a good time to try to bury bad news.