Transport Insights

The transport stories you won't see in the industry-friendly media

Author

Chris Ames

  • Robbing maintenance to pay renewal?

    This week I have made my debut as a columnist in LTT magazine, with an analysis of the draft third Road Investment Strategy, (RIS 3) concluding with the idea that there are a lot of gaps to be filled in.

    Promises of “a greater focus than ever before on the maintenance and renewal of the network” have not, SOFA, been backed with confirmation that asset management will get more money.

    The closest the document comes is a reference to “increased renewals funding” which isn’t even described as increasing in real terms.

    The document states:

    The final RIS strategy will define how this [£25bn] is split between capital and resource expenditure and outline the main categories of spend, including the schemes that will be delivered.

    Operations, Maintenance and Renewals are lumped together in a single section, which begins with a classic lie:

    43% of the RIS2 investment programme focussed on operating, maintaining, and renewing the existing network.

    Yes, £10.8bn of the eventual RIS 2 budget of £24bn was spent on these three things, but money spent on operating the network was resource spending, not investment.

    There is then a statement of the should-does-not-mean-yes variety – an assertion of what is needed without a commitment to actually do it:

    Maintaining a safe and reliable road network depends on a well-funded, carefully coordinated maintenance programme, delivered through a balanced combination of operations, maintenance, and renewals (OMR) activities.

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  • DfT makes no promises over National Highways runoff clean-up

    The government has, unsurprisingly, failed to back National Highways chief executive Nick Harris’ optimism that it will fund the company’s plans to clean up its “very worst locations” for water pollution.

    Yesterday, Harris was asked at the Environmental Audit Committee about National Highways plan to “mitigate” by 2030 what it now estimates to be around 250 high risk outfalls and soakaways – where toxic road runoff runs off into watercourses and the environment generally.

    What certainty did he have that this would be funded in the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3)? Well, he was “proceeding on the basis that we will be funded to do all 250”.

    Naturally I asked the Department for Transport whether it could clarify this.

    It has responded with little more than a confirmation that the RIS 3  document will be published in March (which is a surprise as the draft said “no later than” March rather than giving a specific month) with its funding and what is expected of it only made clear at that point.

    What we know is that National Highways will have nearly £25bn over five years, with no clarity on how much of this will be capital and how much “resource” or how much will be spent on enhancements or maintenance, renewals or operations. There may or may not be a designated fund for the environment, and perhaps something else called a national programme.

    Is Harris simply engaging in wishful thinking, or does he know something we don’t?

  • Up to its old tricks: DfT conceals local road upgrade budget

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed that there is a budget for local road upgrades in England for the next four years but has refused to say what that budget is.

    The secret fund will pay for two categories of local authority upgrade – the Major Road Network (MRN) and Large Local Majors (LLM), which previously fell under a funding stream called the National Roads Fund (NRF) that also included National Highways’ funding.

    A DfT spokesperson has effectively confirmed that the NRF no longer exists but did refer to an MRN/LLM programme.

    Using the Freedom of Information Act, I asked the DfT what the individual or combined budgets were for the MRN and LLMs for the period covered by the Spending Review, which is up to and including 2029-30. It implicitly confirmed that this information exists by explicitly refusing to provide it.

    The DfT may be following a tried and tested PR strategy of announcing a large headline figure and then the smaller allocations within that – effectively re-announcing the same cash as it did this week. But it may be that the total budget is never stated.

    The DfT previously told me that the MRN/LLM funding falls under the £24bn capital funding for strategic and local roads up to 2030 that was announced in the spending review, with further announcements “in due course”.

    The government has since announced that the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) will get nearly £25bn up to 2031. A large proportion of this will come from the £24bn, although not all of the cash for the RIS will be capital funding. Nearly 70% of the “interim settlement” of £4.8bn for the current year is capital.

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  • Pavement parking ban remains sidelined

    During a Westminster Hall debate on Wednesday, future of roads minister Lilian Greenwood signalled that a ban on pavement parking is imminent – or did she?

    Well it looks like it could happen…some time in the future of roads.

    Local news outlets such as Bristol Live report:

    Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Transport, Lilian Greenwood, revealed that a policy announcement was imminent.

    “Our work is helping us shape a policy that is not only effective but equitable. As a result of all that work, I expect to make an announcement very soon.”

    Greenwood noted that the last government had sat on the issue for four years (after its consultation closed in November 2020) but said Labour, which came to power 14 months ago, was dealing with the matter as a matter of urgency.

    “Very soon” sounds like good news. It’s such good news that Greenwood has said it (at least) twice.

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  • “Shocking” Harris wilts under pressure

    It’s fair to say that National Highways chief executive Nick Harris got a bit of a kicking from MPs yesterday – on the subject of failed tree planting – but he was allowed to give a very vague answer on the subject of funding for cleaning up water pollution.

    To recap, Harris and the company’s director of environmental sustainability, Stephen Elderkin, were in front of the Environmental Audit Committee to talk about biodiversity, including tree planting, as well as what the company is doing to mitigate the toxic runoff from its roads.

    The headline on water pollution is that Harris said the company had mitigated just 40 “high risk” outlets since he last appeared before the committee in 2021 but now estimated that there are another 250 approximately, which it has pledged to mitigate by 2030.

    That is the date – the original end date for the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) in March 2030 – given in National Highways’ 2030 Water Quality Plan, subject to funding of course.

    Harris described this as a prioritisation process of getting stuck into the very worst locations, adding that the company has 180 locations where it is developing designs, with more high risk locations expected to be identified.

    The problem is that National Highways has no funding for this at the moment. It has a promise of nearly £25bn up to 2031 under the draft RIS but no specific funding streams. Ministers have promised a new focus on repairs and renewals, alongside a long and growing tail of enhancement schemes but there are as yet no designated funds for the environment, for example.

    Labour MP Olivia Blake raised the issue of funding and asked Harris what certainty he had that the company would be able to meet the target on mitigation. He replied with wishful thinking:

    We’re proceeding on the basis that we will be funded to do all 250. The interim year hasn’t affected our design work. We’re moving forward on the assumption that it’s all going to be funded.

    He went on to explain the convoluted process by which National Highways, the Office of Rail and Road and the Department for Transport work towards a final RIS 3 by 2030.

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  • Up a highly polluted creek without a paddle

    With National Highways appearing before the Environmental Audit Committee on Wednesday, Transport Action Network (TAN) has published another piece in its National Highways Watch series – this time on “Toxic Run-Off”.

    This covers the company’s plans, or lack of them, to address the pollution being discharged from its network into the natural environment.

    Once again, I have contributed to the TAN piece, despite a lack of co-operation from National Highways, although I would stress that the phrasing used is not necessarily mine. It does punch quite hard, but by no means unfairly.

    The piece also quotes from research by Stormwater Shepherds, a group doing great work on the issue, whose UK director of operations, Jo Bradley, will also be appearing before the committee.

    The group has pointed out that while Section 100 of the Highways Act 1980 allows highway authorities like National Highways to discharge surface water into any inland or tidal waters, a discharge of polluting matter into a watercourse would usually require a permit from the Environment Agency, and argued that the company is not exempt from enforcement action in this area.

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  • It’s not investment; it’s spending

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has managed to pull off two of its favourite tricks in an announcement this morning, re-announcing funding and labelling it “investment” when it’s day-to-day.

    Millions of people across the country will have greater access to jobs, education and public services thanks to a £104 million government funding boost, which will be shared with communities outside England’s major cities.

    The gist of the story is that the DfT has confirmed the Local Transport Grant (LTG) resource allocations that English councils outside city regions will receive for the next three years, with the headline figure of £104m having been announced in the Spending review.

    So, despite claims that the cash is a “boost”, it’s the deceitful labelling of the continuation of an existing funding stream as extra cash.

    There is a small amount of extra cash for a small number of councils from 2027, but this comes on the back of previous freezes, which continue into 2026-27.

    The annual total of £28m next year is therefore the same as this year, and the year before, with £38m a year after that.

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  • Greenwood goes back to the future of roads

    Future of roads minister Lilian Greenwood has been out and about in the Midlands, touting Labour’s decision not to cancel a road building scheme from the second Road Investment Strategy (RIS 2).

    The M54-M6 link road was one of five schemes from RIS 2 that were confirmed by the Department for Transport (DfT) in July, following the spending review, having been subject to the value for money review that the then transport secretary, Louise Haigh, announced a year earlier.

    Apparently forgetting that her own government had called the longstanding scheme into question, Greenwood called it a “no-brainer”. It has also been said that it could be a “game changer” for the region. Other cliches are available.

    Apparently also forgetting that the scheme had been subject to a value for money review, Greenwood said she did not know how much it was going to cost. It was estimated at around £200m in 2019 so the current cost of the blank cheque will be a lot higher.

    According to the BBC, she said:

    We’ve got National Highways working really hard now to finalise the costs, to work out the schedule, to appoint a delivery partner; all that will be confirmed as part of the roads investment strategy that we’ll be publishing before the end of March next year.

    The DfT rather carelessly lost its previous contractor, sorry, “delivery partner”, Bam Nuttall in 2023.

    The four other schemes that the government “confirmed” in July were: A38 Derby Junctions; M60/M62/M66 Simister Island; A46 Newark Bypass; and the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine.

    All were “confirmed” RIS 2 schemes but frozen by Labour so it is giving itself credit for unblocking things it blocked. At least, for once, Greenwood didn’t claim that this was part of its Plan for Change.

    All schemes will be returned to RIS 3 and take up quite a lot of whatever capital funding it includes for enhancements. It was always expected that the “tail” of schemes slipping from RIS 2 to RIS 3 would make up a big chunk of the latter.

    The big picture is that Labour’s future of roads minister has confirmed that the future of roads is a lot of road schemes from the past.

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  • Puttng lipstick on a pig

    Transport Action Network (TAN) has posted another of its National Highways Watch pieces, with significant input from me, and it has been almost simultaneously vindicated by comments in the draft Third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3).

    The piece Highway robbery – abusing Designated Funds compares National Highways’ use of designated funds, pictorially at least, to putting lipstick on a pig – i.e. prettifying large and potentially environmentally destructive road building schemes with greenwashing.

    TAN has discovered that National Highways is syphoning off money from a dedicated fund for environmental and safety improvements (called ‘Designated Funds’1) to use it as sweeteners or greenwashing for new roadbuilding schemes. National Highways is also raiding the “ringfenced” funding to pay for mitigation that should come out of the scheme budgets.

    The piece highlights a number of alleged misuses of designated funds, including “sweetening the Lower Thames Crossing”:

    A document on “Benefits and Outcomes” submitted as part of the scheme’s planning application mentions “Designated Funds” 25 times, and claims that “Over £30 million of designated funds have been allocated to Lower Thames Crossing”, despite having to make clear that these benefits technically “fall outside of the remit of the DCO [planning application]”.

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  • Smart motorway shortcomings combined in fatal crash

    National Highways’ response to the coroner examining the death of a motorist on a “smart motorway” section of the M6 where the emergency areas are officially too far apart also raises concerning questions about the effectiveness of the technology involved.

    In June 2023, Kevin O’Reilly ran out of petrol on the all lane running M6 northbound approaching Junction 12 and was stationary in lane three when his car was hit by an HGV.

    Emma Serrano, area coroner for Staffordshire sent National Highways a Regulation 28: Report to Prevent Future Deaths in relation to the death of Mr O’Reilly, expressing concern over the frequency of emergency areas and that the motorway was ‘not monitored’.

    I wrote about the issues around emergency area spacing – and what the government isn’t doing about them – earlier today but what National Highways said about the role that stopped vehicle detection (SVD) played is very worrying:

    Having reviewed our CCTV footage after the incident, we determined that Mr O’Reilly’s vehicle was slow moving until approximately 30 seconds before the collision. Once stopped, SVD operated correctly in detecting the vehicle and triggered the automatic “Report of obstruction” message just after the HGV, that collided with Mr O’Reilly’s car, passed the variable message sign. Therefore the HGV driver was not presented with this warning message.

    So, everything worked as it should, but a driver in a stationary vehicle without access to an emergency area (in the absence of a hard shoulder) still lost his life.

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