Tag: a14

• Harris gets delayed rebuke for gaslighting MPs

  Back on the subject of National Highways’ disastrous tree planting on its A14 scheme, the transport secretary has publicly rebuked the company for inaccurate evidence it gave to a Commons committee about who was a paying to (try to) put it right.

  Looking back at the evidence given by its then chief executive, Nick Harris, and his subsequent non apology shows quite how arrogant the company – or at least Harris – is.
  
  Here’s the original exchange:

  Olivia Blake: I just want to pick up on what all this has cost in terms of the A14. In particular, what has so far been spent on putting this issue right? Going forward, what are the estimated costs of keeping on putting it right, if that makes sense?
  Nick Harris: On the planting, that is a commercial conversation with the contractors. They have not met the quality standards, so that planting is at their cost.
  Chair: Just to clarify, that falls on them, not the public purse.
  Nick Harris: That falls on them, yes.
  Olivia Blake: Is that true for all the trees that you have?
  Nick Harris: It depends on how they have been established. For example, I mentioned earlier the issue of ash dieback. That is a cost that falls on us because that is our estate to manage.
  Olivia Blake: So you are doing good contract management, in your opinion.
  Nick Harris: We are doing good contract management. We are always seeking to improve how we manage our contractors. It is our responsibility.

  

  Of course, the company was not doing good contract management. In a subsequent letter to the chair, Toby Perkins MP, Harris said he wanted to clarify – not correct – his evidence:

  To date, National Highways has funded the replanting from existing project funds and contingencies, meaning this was absorbed in existing National Highways funding. Whilst we did not request additional funding, the costs have been met by National Highways from public funds, so I am keen to correct any misunderstanding of my evidence.

  Not a whiff of contrition, just a suggestion that his entirely clear but wholly inaccurate previous statement had been misunderstood.

  Perkins was decidedly unimpressed, despite an assurance from National Highways that “it was not Mr Harris’ intention to mislead the Committee”. In a letter to transport secretary Heidi Alexander in December, he wrote:

  (more…)

  2026.04.29

• Growing very wrong

  The shambles that is National Highways’ replacement replacement tree planting alongside the A14 continues, with the government-owned company still not entirely sure what it is doing.

  The BBC reports:

  National Highways has admitted its “performance on tree planting has not been good enough”, as it looks to put in 50,000 more along the A14 where thousands have died.

  The trees will be planted along the new part of the A-road, between Huntingdon and Cambridge, where many of the 860,000 that were originally put in never grew.

  The government-owned company said after “identifying losses caused by several factors”, it had started “a 50,000 tree trial to test new measures and inform our future planting regime”.

  Vhari Russell, the founder of Creating Nature’s Corridors, welcomed the trial but raised concerns about the trees being planted at the wrong time of year.

  I researched and wrote this piece last year for Transport Action Network, which pointed out that to make way for the £1.5bn A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon scheme, 400,000 trees and shrubs were cleared, but National Highways said it would replant more trees than it had felled.

  

  However, Sky News revealed in 2023 that three-quarters of the 850,000 saplings planted to replace veteran trees felled for the project had died. This would be around 600,000 dead trees. National Highways said it would replant the trees at a cost of £2.9m.

  The BBC notes that while National Highways said in March 2023 that it would replant 160,000 trees and shrubs, a Cambridgeshire County Council meeting last June heard that sections of the £1.5bn road still looked “like a desert”, leading to local residents planting new trees themselves.

  In its one-year-after Post Opening Project Evaluation for the scheme – published in September 2024, four and a half years after it opened – National Highways said:

  (more…)

  2026.04.15