Tag: a66

• Is road building up in the air too?

  Still on the subject of Heidi Alexander’s speech to the Labour conference, it has been pointed out to me that she also made no reference to any of the major road schemes that the government is officially taking forward, such as the A66 scheme or the Lower Thames Crossing.

  Has the government gone cold on road building?

  Here are the transport secretary’s references to roads in a speech that had a lot to say about the railways:

  Roads riddled with potholes
  
  Record investment in roads maintenance, Conference. The first Road Safety Strategy in over a decade.
  
  Our newest Minister, Justin Madders, who is gripping the problem of driving test wait times and overseeing our investment in roads.

  

  Given that the first reference to investment in roads is specifically to maintenance, it might be reasonable to assume that the second one is also and that the absence of reference to road building suggests that ministers are less keen on it than they were.

  This seems to have been the case with Heathrow expansion, as I noted yesterday.

  On that subject, City AM reports that

  …Alexander told the News Agents podcast that Heathrow’s expansion was a “very significant infrastructure project” that should be weighed up against the country’s climate obligations and its impact on locals.
  
  The comments represent a striking departure from the full-throated support that the Keir Starmer government gave the runway, which former Chancellor Rachel Reeves singled out as a key pillar in her bid to boost economic growth.

  Having said that, the Independent reports Treasury minister James Murray as giving the scheme full-throated support, in spite of Andy Burnham’s refusal to do so:

  But I think we recognise that having that third runway is really important for jobs, it’s really important to get that investment into Heathrow and it’s actually really important for the whole country because that investment in making Heathrow stronger, making our country stronger, making sure that we boost trade and making sure we get more jobs right across the country is really important for our future.

  Is there a row going on down near Slough?

  2026.09.30

• A66 scheme breaches the £2bn barrier

  Returning to the theme of the schemes in the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) that will carry both construction activity and costs into the next RIS, getting more expensive the longer they are delayed, the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine is now set to cost over £2bn.

  What makes this example even more farcical is that the scheme was part of Boris Johnson’s 2020 Project Speed to, well, speed up infrastructure schemes, and was given special funding for this purpose.

  

  I was the first person to report that the costs of the scheme had hit £1.5bn.

  Now, the Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) advice on National Highways’ draft strategic business plan reveals that the total costs of the 16 enhancement schemes in the draft strategic business plan (SBP) are around £600m higher than previous estimate.  

  This difference is predominantly from the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme, where the outturn cost in the draft SBP compared was £540m above the most recent forecast.

  Assuming that the most recent forecast was £1.5bn, that puts the scheme at well over £2bn. I don’t really like saying that something has breached an imaginary barrier but in this case I use the word ironically, to point out that the costs of these schemes just seem to escalate without any constraints.

  (more…)

  2026.04.02

• Throwing random numbers at the problem

  *UPDATE: I have now confirmed that the government has not green lit 28 local road schemes*

  The Department for Transport announcement about a “green light for over 50 road and rail upgrades” has a lot of random numbers and very little detail but cannot disguise the fact that Labour is throwing a lot of money at road schemes in a climate emergency, with very little for rail.

  One number that isn’t in the press release is the £1.5bn cost of the A66 Northern Trans-Pennine, which I wrote about yesterday, and which dwarfs the “£27 million to reinstate passenger rail services between Portishead and Bristol city centre”.

  Neither is the benefit cost ratio of 0.9 for the A66 scheme, representing poor value for money.

  And it is unclear how much funding the government is giving the Midlands Rail Hub, other than that it is “significant”.

  

  Among some obviously made-up numbers about road and rail schemes supporting tens of thousands of new jobs and new homes, there seems to be quite a sleight of hand over the number of road schemes that have actually been given the green light.

  (more…)

  2025.07.08

• Throwing money down the utilities

  Transport Action Network has published the latest piece in its National Highways Watch series, which I researched and wrote, looking at how the government-owned company regularly overspends on enhancements projects.

  It is, I hope, a comprehensive account on past, current and future projects, as well as scrapped schemes like the A303 Stonehenge Tunnel.

  

  Among schemes that the Labour government has not yet admitted it can’t afford are the £10bn+ Lower Thames Crossing and the £1.5bn A66 Northern Trans-Pennine project, which is currently stuck in the Department for Transport’s value for money review.

  Both have very low benefit cost ratios and seem to be being driven by politics more than anything.

  Last month’s Spending Review did not mention the A66 scheme, something that the Northern Echo noticed, before reporting what it optimistically called an “update”, based on a Treasury Statement.

  A spokesperson for the Treasury said: “The Department for Transport will set out their long-term plan for the Strategic Road Network through the third Road Investment Strategy.

  “Further details on individual schemes like the A66 will be provided by the Department for Transport in due course.”

  Labour is rightly using a hiatus between five-year road investment strategies to rethink what it want to fund but the government has previously said the RIS would be aligned with the spending review and “in due course” is governments’ much-mocked way of refusing to give a firm date.

  So not much of an update.

  (more…)

  2025.07.07