Tag: designated funds

• Designated funds have no funding

  The new Road Investment Strategy (RIS) has set a new low for opacity by announcing four “designated funds” without any actual funding committed.

  The RIS document, published this morning by the Department for Transport, rehearses the use of designated funds to “go beyond the requirements of National Highways as a network operator” and states:

  RIS3 will continue to provide funding for four Designated Funds: Safety; Customer and Communities; Innovation and Research; and Environment. These four funds have been refined from RIS2 to reflect the priorities of RIS3 and its increased focus on safety and environmental objectives.

  Each Designated Fund is operated directly by National Highways. National Highways will report to Government about where the money has been spent, and how it has delivered value for money, but the operational decisions about how to invest these funds is delegated to National Highways.

  

  But, despite a reference to “the money” and to “these funds”, nowhere does the document state how much money will be in each of these funds, meaning that each so-called funds currently has neither designated funding nor any actual objectives.

  It appears that any actual funding will be announced further down the line.

  In fact, National Highways’ own webpage states:

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  2026.03.26

• ORR ties itself in loosely defined knots

  True to form, National Highways’ regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), has brushed off a complaint from campaigners about the company’s alleged misuse of designated funds.

  Transport Action Network (TAN) wrote to the ORR in August following publication of one of its National Highways Watch pieces on the issue, to which I contributed.

  Specifically, it alleged that the company was spending the “ring-fenced” funds on:

  Projects completely unrelated to roads (such as dance classes and school play equipment), acting as ‘sweeteners’ to buy local support on controversial schemes such as the Lower Thames Crossing

  Mitigation for new road projects, removing the cost of conservation projects from the project budget and artificially lowering the cost estimate.

  

  Designated Funds are a separate cash pot intended to make improvements on and around the strategic road network to address impacts such as community severance and environmental impacts, as well as delivering “additional” improvements to road schemes and improving safety across the network.

  The ORR’s response to TAN’s complaint was broadly that as the government had not prescribed what designated funds could or could not be spent on, National Highways can do what it likes with the cash, which totalled £870m under the 2020-25 road investment strategy (RIS 2) and £89m in the interim period (2025-26).

  It paraphrased RIS 2, which itself paraphrased its four named funds, as naming “some specific areas for investment – such as improving environmental performance, investigating innovative processes and improving facilities for those who walk and cycle” but also making clear that this is not an exhaustive list.

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  2025.10.08

• Alexander unconvinced by National Highways funding “bid”

  Campaigners have declared a partial victory over National Highways’ M60/M62/M66 Simister Island scheme, despite the award of a development consent order (DCO) by the transport secretary.

  Transport Action Network (TAN) said it is “very pleased to see that [Heidi Alexander] agreed with us that National Highways must improve the Haweswater Underpass as part of the M60 Simister Island scheme”.

  The underpass featured in a National Highways Watch piece that I wrote for TAN about the company’s use of “designated funds” on roadbuilding schemes. National Highways claimed that improving the underpass as an active travel route under the motorway was not part of its scheme, but TAN argued that it should be.

  The decision letter on the scheme does not resolve this dispute but does say clearly that Alexander considers that a proposed addition to the DCO  of a “requirement” for the company to deliver the scheme of improvements to the Haweswater Underpass “is necessary and proportionate to impact from the Proposed Development”.

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  2025.09.11

• 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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  2025.08.29