Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

  • It was a political choice

    Former transport secretary Anne Marie Trevelyan has said some interesting things about the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham dualling scheme but seems remarkably ignorant about the fact that her government shelved the scheme.

    As I have written extensively, going back to this time last year, the Tories secretly defunded the scheme under the 2021 Spending Review.

    In fact, based on a leaked report drawn up under the current government, the Newcastle Chronicle reported last June:

    Subsequently, during the 2021 Spending Review the funding for the scheme was “withdrawn” and the plan was “deprioritised”.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.”

    Now, the same journalist is reporting comments by Trevelyan:

    … speaking to the Local Democracy Reporting Service Ms Trevelyan, who lost her seat to Labour in 2024, insisted she and others had fought hard for the improvements.

    She said: “They hated it because it didn’t meet the budget models that any road down south did. It was always hard work.
    …
    “The system was going to slow it down. We ended up spending over £60 million on all the prep work.

    “Everybody was lined up waiting for the final stage to go, and Rishi pulled the plug and called an election. The project was sitting there waiting to go, but Labour came in and scrapped it.”

    Trevelyan will have known that it was her government that defunded the scheme. She was transport secretary between September and October 2022, i.e. the crazy days of the Liz Truss premiership.

    During that time, Kwasi Kwarteng’s Growth Plan promised to splurge money “accelerating” infrastructure schemes, including Morpeth to Ellingham.

    But no money was formally allocated and when Rishi Sunak came in, the Growth Plan was binned.

    Trevelyan says Labour “presumably took the advice of civil servants who would always rather spend money in the south”, adding:

    (more…)

  • Tunnel spared from deadly cuts

    With the fallout from the shelving of two National Highways road schemes continuing, the BBC’s reporting has reflected to some extent the fact that not everyone thinks new roads are a good idea, although thankfully the Lower Thames Crossing has been spared!

    In the midlands, the BBC asks a question that presumes that new roads are a good idea:

    Is the East Midlands being neglected again with scrapped road schemes?

    The article focuses on regional mayor Claire Ward, who is still cross:

    Ward felt she’d been making progress on behalf of Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire, securing, for example, £2bn of funding for local transport projects in last year’s Spending Review.

    So what has gone wrong?

    So far we have “neglected” and “wrong” but if you can read past what fascist reform thinks there are at least alternative voices:

    The road schemes are not universally popular, either, and local campaign groups have long argued against them on environmental grounds.

    Paul Smith, who chairs the parish council in the village of Winthorpe, near the A46 Newark bypass, says “a lot of people are relieved”.

    And the article links to an earlier article with Derby City Council leader Nadine Peatfield questioning the case for if the “recently shelved A38 scheme” in the city, and comment from Adrian Howlett, from the Stop the A38 expansion group:

    Howlett said the group was “disappointed” that there had been no announcement that other options would be explored, and described the current scheme as “completely outdated”.

    He added: “Let’s actually get some investment into Derby that isn’t just a massive roads-dependent scheme and actually looks at all the options.”

    Which is a reminder that the shelving of the two schemes is not the government seeing sense, just cutting transport investment.

    (more…)

  • A funding cap is a very precise choice

    Northern Powerhouse Rail (NPR) may have escaped cuts to the Department for Transport’s capital spending on infrastructure to pay for drones, but MPs have cast doubt on whether the project can be delivered in full within a seemingly arbitrary cap on its funding.

    By way of a reminder, the project does not have actual funding, beyond around a billion for development, but the Treasury has set a hard cap of £45bn on the amount that can be spent on delivering it.

    Now the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has flagged a “clear risk” that the Department for Transport (DfT) will not be able to manage the programme its funding cap. MPs said:

    This may help affordability, but we are unclear how HM Treasury determined the cap before the entire project is designed, scoped and costed.

    With NPR due to be delivered in phases, the PAC said:

    The final phase of Northern Powerhouse Rail—needed for the full connectivity and benefits—is at risk if the Department cannot scope the programme within the cap or if early cost estimates prove unrealistic.

    Most people seem to think the early cost estimates will indeed prove unrealistic and the PAC adds:

    (more…)

  • Funding gaps can’t be bridged

    Hammersmith and Fulham council has accepted that it cannot fund a £300m full restoration – or replacement – of Hammersmith Bridge, but will instead seek funding amounting to approximately a quarter of the value of the government’s non-existent “Structures Fund” for a partial fix.

    A report to the council’s cabinet says:

    The Hammersmith Bridge restoration works are extensive. They essentially require a brand-new bridge to be built as all of the Grade II listed heritage structure needs to be replaced or strengthened or restored. The cost of a full restoration of Hammersmith Bridge to allow its use for motor vehicles is now estimated to be £300m.

    …

    Following discussions with the DfT, it is recommended that the Council submits a bid for a phased repair focused on the most critical life-expired elements of the structure, with the immediate aim of keeping the bridge open and safeguarding access for pedestrians, cyclists and river traffic. The DfT has confirmed its preference for this phased repair bid to the Structures Fund. There is no financial option available that would allow its full restoration.

    In three separate places, the report gives the value of the Structures Fund as “£1bn”. This is inaccurate: as I have written extensively, the fund does not have a fixed amount and is to get an unstated (and possibly undecided) share of the £1bn with local authority road upgrades.

    This matters when:

    (more…)

  • Is “uncommitted” road safety funding under threat?

    We’ve now worked backwards to the point where the government is still not being straight about shelving road schemes in the road investment strategy (RIS 3) and is looking to cut other “uncommitted” roads funding – on safety perhaps?

    Early yesterday people were working backwards from news that National Highways had cancelled its £300m contract with Skanska to build the A46 Newark Bypass.

    As I reported, the Department for Transport, which knew very well what was going on, was referring enquiries to National Highways, on the grounds that it was a supply chain issue.

    It then emerged that the decision had come from the other end as National Highways referred me to “The Defence Investment Plan Funding explainer”, which said:

    DfT will provide savings of up to £700m from its roads funding. The Department will consult on reductions to the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) – including the potential cancellation of the A38 Derby Junctions and A46 Newark Bypass schemes, both of which are yet to enter contract and not as far along as other road schemes. There will be stakeholder consultations before any final decision is taken.

    Utterly gutless and inept. The Treasury doesn’t seem to realise that the A46 scheme is not “yet to enter contract”. There may not have been notice to proceed with the works but the contract was there and had to be cancelled. Maybe someone conflated “contract” with “construction”, or were they just spinning?

    The news that both the A38 (pictured) and A46 schemes have been shelved was welcomed by many campaigners, but went down very badly with Claire Ward, mayor of the East Midlands.

    In a statement, she described it as “totally unacceptable to me”, adding:

    (more…)

  • Reeves raids RIS to buy drones

    The decision to cancel Skanska’s £300m contract to design and build the A46 Newark Bypass – apparently to free up cash for defence – makes a mockery of the road investment strategy (RIS 3) that was published just three months ago – and indeed the whole concept a of a five-year strategy for strategic roads.

    The decision was reported from the bottom up:

    Skanska has received a cancellation of the contract from National Highways to deliver the upgrade of a 6.6 kilometer stretch of the A46 Newark bypass in the Midlands region, UK. The cancellation, worth GBP 297M, about SEK 3.7 billion, will reduce the European order bookings in the second quarter of 2026.

    National Highways has given no explanation for the decision – usually a sign that it has been given instructions from above – and it isn’t clear that the cancellation decision applies to the scheme or just Skanska’s contract.

    The Department for Transport has declined to deny that the decision was taken by central government – instead presenting it as an issue for National Highways as it relates to the supply chain.

    But this is disingenuous. The BBC reports:

    The PM goes on to say that some road and energy projects that are not “immediately vital” would be scrapped to pay for increased defence spending.

    (more…)

  • Having your cake and eating it

    It’s not been a great week for plans to expand Heathrow airport and now we have the head of a major airline group claiming he can’t afford a top-of-the-range Mercedes.

    The FT reports that Theo Panagiotoulias, chief executive of Star Alliance, has warned that the new runway and terminal risks pricing out airlines.

    The head of a major airline alliance that includes Lufthansa and United has likened Heathrow’s third runway plans to an unaffordable luxury car as he urged the airport to cut back some parts of the “eye-watering” project.
    …
    “I’d love to have a fully specced Mercedes-Benz that’s top of the line. I don’t know if I can necessarily afford it, but I’d like it,” he said. “It’s the same parallel.”

    “I’ve seen some numbers thrown around and they’re eye-watering. We’ve got to be able to have conversations to determine what’s the ‘nice to have’ and what are the things we must have,” he told the Aviation Club in London.

    About Us management photo – Theo Panagiotoulias_Star Alliance CEO

    According to the FT, Star Alliance’s 26 members account for one in six planes that take off from Heathrow and the FT points out that Panagiotoulias’ intervention is the latest in a “chorus of airlines” warning about the potential cost of building a third runway.

    But he still wants it to go ahead in some form so he can pay for that Merc.

    The newspaper gives the cost of the project as £33bn, but it could be way higher than that. As I noted here, the Civil Aviation Authority commissioned an independent report that showed the true cost of the scheme is in the range of £33bn-£52bn, excluding public transport improvements.

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  • To be fair, they may just be incompetent

    The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) seems to have lost more than the plot when it comes to finding out why National Highways did so little to achieve its casualty reduction target under the last road investment strategy (RIS 2).

    It is now claiming to be unable to find the information that the company has given it about what it did or didn’t do to meet the target.

    As usual, the problem is working out whether the ORR is covering for National Highways, covering for its own inability to hold the company to account, incompetent, or all three.

    Let’s go back to what the regulator said in its December 2022 First Annual Assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network:

    National Highways is working to develop and deliver an action plan aligned to its 2025 safety target

    But by the December 2023 report, the emphasis had shifted away from a plan to meet the target to actions within the annual delivery plan, except that:

    National Highways recognises that its Delivery Plan actions alone might not be sufficient to deliver the RIS2 safety KPI target.

    In its (July 2024) Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance April 2023 to March 2024, the regulator was quite critical of the company’s complacency:

    …if National Highways had been more proactive in recognising the risks earlier in the road period and developed more robust safety plans sooner this would have increased the likelihood of meeting the target.

    And by the time of the next safety assessment (March 2025) the regulator was beginning to smell a rat:

    (more…)

  • Brabin determined not to lose control, again

    Fresh from hiding a damning report about her mass transit plans, West Yorkshire mayor Tracy Brabin has been caught in another transparency row – accused of locking bus users out of planning for franchising and taking decisions in secret.

    The Yorkshire Evening Post (YEP) reports:

    Campaigners in West Yorkshire are calling for “more transparency” from the Mayor’s office on bus franchising plans.

    Better Buses West Yorkshire staged a ‘People’s Question Time’ protest outside the West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s (WYCA) offices on Wellington Street, Leeds this morning. This was aimed at highlighting how local bus groups feel they have been locked out of decisions about their bus services.

    Green “Weaver Network” buses are due to hit the streets from next year after Brabin decided in 2024 to bring public transport back under public control, despite pressure from bus operators.

    But Cristiana Mirosanu, Green councillor for Chapel Allerton ward (where I used to live), told the YEP:

    (more…)

  • “Designed to encourage”

    An MP has asked ministers a great question about their claims that new guidance on highway maintenance will make a tangible difference to the number of potholes and the like on the English local authority road network.

    It goes back to the Department for Transport press release on How well does your council fix potholes? which I wrote about here, particularly the mixed messaging between long-term preventative maintenance or (not just fixing potholes) and “fixing potholes”.

    James McMurdock, the Independent MP for South Basildon and East Thurrock, asked the Secretary of State for Transport:

    with reference to her Department’s press release entitled How well does your council fix potholes? Tough new guidance for councils will end patch-up fixes and lead to smoother, safer journeys, published on 9 June 2026, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of the new guidance on the number of pothole-related defects.

    You would imagine a claim as definitive as that the guidance “will end patch-up fixes” would be based on something.

    Obviously, roads minster Simon Lightwood doesn’t feel the need to back this sort of thing with an actual assessment:

    (more…)

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