The revelation that thousands of drivers have been wrongly prosecuted because speed cameras on smart motorways and elsewhere had the wrong settings is a major embarrassment for National Highways, which is why it is, typically, trying to play it down.
I’m not sure it will boost confidence that the issue has only been admitted by the government-owned company and the Department for Transport (DfT) after a so-called fix has been put in place, but here is the headline on the National Highways press release:
The scandal will yet again raise concerns about the safety of smart motorways, which are stretches of road where variable speed camera technology is used to manage traffic flow and reduce congestion.
It’s fair enough to point out that too rigid enforcement doesn’t put anyone at risk but the story feeds into the general problem that, as the draft of the third Road Investment Strategy put it:
National Highways should not be over-reliant on technology, for example drawing on insights from the use of cameras and stopped vehicle detection when considering driver safety and welfare.
This is code for saying that the technology on smart motorways isn’t up to the job.
There’s a good write-up in the (Sheffield) Star of the current situation over the release of the 14 evaluation reports on smart motorways that ministers are sitting on, with the Department for Transport’s (DfT) excuses not fooling anyone.
It features Claire Mercer’s reaction to the DfT being unable to say that there is anything other than a made-up “assurance” process to justify the ongoing suppression of the Post Opening Project Evaluations (POPEs).
Speaking to The Star, Claire – founder of the Smart Motorways Kill Campaign – scolded the DfT and said she believes the “only reason” for the delays can be that roads minister Simon Lightwood is “merely preparing to spin what are likely to be very negative findings.”
The Star does include Mercer’s allegation that Lightwood lied to her by falsely claiming that an assurance process is “ongoing”:
Claire Mercer of Smart Motorways Kill has also concluded that the claim that the Department for Transport (DfT) is still “assuring” 14 smart motorway evaluation reports going back three years is a fiction – and that roads minister Simon Lightwood lied to her about this.
Mercer, whose husband Jason was killed, along with Alexandru Murgeanu, on a smart motorway stretch of the M1 in 2019, co-organised the protest outside the DfT last month calling for the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports to be released.
…it is right that we take the time to fully assure findings. This process is ongoing
As I wrote on Monday, when challenged over the “process” by Mercer’s MP, Sarah Champion, Lightwood resorted to claiming that a “wider assurance”, rather than the formal assurance for each scheme was happening. This is clearly a fiction.
Mercer’s solicitors, Irwin Mitchell, also wrote to the DfT to challenge the process. It told them that the reports:
are currently completing the final governance and approval stages
adding:
it is right that the department take the time to fully understand and assure findings prior to publication
Again, the pretence that a formal assurance process is happening has evaporated.
Mercer has seen through this and has not forgotten what Lightwood told her. She said:
Returning to the issue of how the Tories secretly shelved a major road scheme and roped National Highways and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) into lying about it, I’ve just received from the Department for Transport what is perhaps the most disingenuous attempt to wriggle out of a freedom of information (FOI) request that I have seen in 20 years.
To recap, the government secretly defunded and deprioritised the scheme in the (late) 2021 Spending Review and told the government-owned company and the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) this in February 2022 and the DfT claims that it immediately approved a National Highways change control request to pause the scheme that same month.
In total, as at the end of March 2022, of the 69 schemes originally announced in RIS2; 10 have been completed, 23 are currently under construction, 25 are in the development phase (including 23 at various stages of the planning process) and 11 have been paused following the Transport Select Committee’s recommendations.
As the 11 paused schemes are smart motorways, this (implicitly) puts the A1 scheme “in the development phase”. To clear this up, I asked the DfT press office to tell me the official status of the scheme as of 31 March 2022. When it didn’t answer, I asked the department to treat it as an FOI request.
Its response, this week, was to claim:
your query does not involve a request for recorded information
Given that the DfT reported to Parliament on the status of all RIS enhancement schemes, this is obviously untrue: the status of the A1 scheme is information that it should have held.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has joined National Highways in refusing my freedom of information request for the 14 evaluations of smart motorway safety that ministers are suppressing, but officials don’t seem keen to claim explicitly that the documents are still trapped in a three-year “assurance” process.
Neither have they repeated the National Highways line that ministers have to work out how to spin the data in the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports, which could show that the safety, economic benefits and environmental impact of individual schemes are not great.
Like the government-owned company, the DfT has withheld the POPEs under Section 22 of the Freedom of Information Act, which applies an exemption to information intended for future publication, claiming that “they are intended for publication in the near future”.
But in making the public interest case for keeping the public in the dark, DfT officials have not said that any kind of assurance process is *actually taking place*:
Premature release before pre publication checks are carried out could result in inaccurate or misleading information being shared. This would not be in the public interest. Pre-publication procedures, such as verification and full review are essential to ensuring the integrity of the information contained therein.
Hapless roads minister Simon Lightwood continues to own the cover-up over the unpublished evaluation reports on smart motorways, while giving nothing away.
To recap, the Department for Transport (DfT) is sitting on a total of 14 Post Opening Performance Evaluation (POPE) reports, at least nine of which were due to be completed by National Highways in 2022, and will not allow the government-owned company so publish them.
Rotherham MP Sarah Champion (pictured, left) has asked two parliamentary questions (so far). The first was:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what discussions she has had with National Highways on Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports; and what her planned timetable is for publication of existing unpublished POPE reports.
In response to which, Lightwood merely owned the cover-up without answering the question:
Post opening project evaluation (POPE) reports are detailed and complex evaluations and it is right that we take the time to fully assure findings. We are committed to transparency and will provide an update on publication in due course.
Update: National Highways has told me that the DfT is sitting on a total of 14 reports. Of these, nine are five years after and five are one year after.
National Highways has said it will publish the reports on smart motorway performance that the Department for Transport (DfT) has been suppressing for nearly three years once ministers have decided how to spin the “complicated” data.
As I have reported, ministers called in the Post Opening Project Evaluation (POPE) reports, at least nine of which were due to be completed by National Highways in 2022, and have not allowed the government-owned company so publish them, supposedly while it carries out “assurance”.
The reports could show that individual smart motorway schemes are failing on issues such as safety, the environment and their impact on the economy.
I asked both National Highways and the DfT to disclose the reports under the Freedom of Information Act but the company has refused under section 22 (1), claiming that it had agreed “a clear route” to publication with the DfT.
Among other “public interest” reasons for withholding the data it said:
We have agreed an approximate date for release by DfT pre Christmas 2025 (subject to DfT agreeing the comms handling plan.
Publication will take place once other specified actions have taken place including briefing of ministers, agreement on a comms plan and final quality assurance.
It explained that the POPE are “complicated” and that it is in the public interest “that the communication of the results is led by the DfT”.
Significantly, National Highways added that the safety sections “include further analysis of data that is already in the public domain, and which has been reported on by NH in its annual stocktake and safety reports”.
Unable to resist spinning the findings even in a supposedly objective balancing exercise, National Highways added:
The POPE reports support the conclusion already drawn that Smart Motorways are amongst the country’s safest roads.
This is clearly the DfT’s concern – National Highways can amalgamate data to disguise the fact that individual schemes are less safe than they want to admit but POPE reports are at a scheme level.
The Department for Transport’s (DfT) claim that tap-in, tap-out payment for trains has been “expanded across south-east England” has to be one of the most misleading press releases I have seen for a long time.
It’s misleading not only because it’s by no means the universal coverage that the word “across” implies but because the programme is nowhere near the coverage that should have been achieved by the end of last year.
The good news is that the addition of the 50 new stations to the Transport for London (TfL) system in four weeks’ time, including Stansted and Southend airports, means that passengers travelling to every London airport will be able to use contactless ticketing – assuming that they could tap in when then started their journeys.
But, as I have reported extensively, this is part of a programme of 233 stations that TfL is delivering for the DfT – effectively extending the Oyster network – that was originally due to be completed by the end of 2024.
It’s the first instalment on the “main phase” of 180 stations, with the “initial phase” of 53 stations being completed earlier this year, nearly two years late.
The Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed that it is no longer pledging to publish its new Road Safety Strategy this year, despite a very recent pledge from a minister.
Our Road Safety Strategy is under development and will include a broad range of policies. We intend to publish by the end of the year.
But in (multiple) subsequent answers, such as this one just a few days later, she has only said e.g.
We will set out more details in due course.
I asked the DfT if it still intends to publish the road safety strategy by the end of the year and a spokesperson told me that “in due course” – i.e. no public target date – is its current line.
It should be a great embarrassment for ministers. In August “government sources” briefed the Times that the strategy is “due to be published in the autumn”, as well as spinning quite a lot of what might be in it.
I don’t think transport secretary Heidi Alexander was asked about the timing of the document when appearing before the Transport Committee yesterday, although she did mention that it was on its way.
Ministers are fond of saying that the new strategy will be “the first for 10 years”.
At this rate their achievement will be even better, perhaps the first for 11 years.
Recent parliamentary answers from transport ministers suggest that Labour is completely stuck on many of key issues it should be addressing.
In response to a question from fellow Labour MP Darren Paffey about the “planned timetable is for announcing further details on the regulation of private electric scooters, as indicated in the Advanced Manufacturing Sector Plan”, roads minister Simon Lightwood said:
The Government is committed to pursuing legislative reform for micromobility vehicles when parliamentary time allows.
We understand the importance of providing a clear legislative timeline and my Department is working with colleagues across government to secure this.
So another example of when being committed to something doesn’t mean actually doing anything about it. Maybe just extend the trials again?
Other MPs have been asking what is happening about pavement parking, including Labour MP Damian Egan. Lilian Greenwood is fully aware that it’s an issue that needs to be addressed, but:
The Government fully understands the serious problems that vehicles parked on the pavement, and other obstacles on the pavement, can cause for pedestrians, especially for people with mobility or sight impairments and disabled people with wheelchairs, prams or pushchairs. To inform next steps, the Department has considered the potential options, assessing the costs and benefits to households and businesses, which includes well-being, social isolation and economic opportunities. This assessment drew on existing evidence, including the 2020 pavement parking consultation. We will announce the next steps and publish our formal response as soon as possible.
It’s now the fifth anniversary of that pavement parking consultation closing. Neither the Tories nor Labour has had the courage to take it forward.
And then there is the promised and widely trailed road safety strategy, “the first for ten years”.
Our Road Safety Strategy is under development and will include a broad range of policies. We intend to publish by the end of the year.
But in subsequent answers, such as this one, she appears to have backed away from this target date, saying:
More details will be published in due course.
“In due course” is of course what officials and ministers say when they can’t or don’t want to give a date. I’ve asked the DfT to clarify and transport secretary Heidi Alexander has been in front of the Transport Committee this morning.
Of course, if Lightwood is to be believed, the department is still carrying out “assurance” of evaluations of smart motorway schemes that National Highways completed in 2022.
The question is, are they incompetent, or just kicking the tricky stuff into the long grass?
Transport Insights 
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