Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: dft

  • Exclusive: Labour blocks smart motorway safety data

    Ministers are sitting on a huge amount of data on the safety and value for money of smart motorway schemes, including at least nine that were due for completion in 2022.

    The concealment of multiple post opening project evaluation (POPE) reports will raise concerns that the government is once again hiding inconvenient facts about the controversial roads, as it did in 2021, when I put pressure on the Department for Transport (DfT) over reports that it was suppressing.

    When the five-years after POPE on the scheme to convert the M1 between junctions 10 and 13 to dynamic hard shoulder was published in September 2021, it revealed that it had cost the economy £200m instead of a projected benefit of £1bn, because it slowed traffic down. It made national news.

    In its Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance 2021-22, regulator the Office of Rail and Road stated:

    We are scrutinising the company’s POPE publication plan for smart motorway schemes. Nine of these are due to be completed in 2022. In July 2021, the company published the five-year POPE for the M1 junctions 10 to 13 dynamic hard shoulder running scheme.

    That POPE was the last report on a smart motorway to be published, which is unsurprising given how terrible the data was, although aggregated safety data is published separately.

    When I asked National Highways why no more POPE reports had been published, a spokesperson told me:

    We have provided the Department for Transport (DfT) with the smart motorway post opening project evaluation (POPE) reports. These are multiple detailed evaluations of scheme performance and DfT is now in the process of undertaking its final assurance.

    Obviously, for those reports completed in 2022, “undertaking final assurance” means locked in a cupboard.

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  • Greenwood sidelined as Lightwood takes roads brief

    Simon Lightwood has been made the new roads minister following the shambolic reshuffle that saw Lilian Greenwood removed from the Department for Transport (DfT) after showing too much enthusiasm for tackling pavement parking, before being partially re-instated.

    However, Greenwood will only be a part-time minister as she has another job in the Whips Office.

    It’s not clear what she will do at the DfT as it has still not bothered to tell the public which minister is responsible for which bit of transport policy. Lightwood is still listed on its website as minister for local transport, while Greenwood and new minister Keir Mather have no responsibilities or roles listed.

    Based on the announcements linked to him, Mather appears to have responsibility for maritime and aviation policy.

    I have previously noted Greenwoods clear statements (several months apart) to take action “very soon” on pavement parking and that a parliamentary answer from Lightwood suggested that he was in no hurry to do anything.

    Time will tell, but he may have been given the roads brief to take forward Labour’s Plan for Change by not changing very much.

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  • DfT: National Highways was right to lie about shelved scheme

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has insisted that National Highways was right to put the the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme in an annual delivery plan, despite the scheme being defunded and officially “paused”.

    Rather surprisingly, the department has stated that the formal pausing of the scheme was achieved through a “change control” document previously disclosed to me, despite that document explicitly stating that it would be dealt with a separate change control submissions,

    “the timing and communication of which will have to be carefully timed with any broader announcements in response to TSC or Union Connectivity reports and any DCO process considerations”.

    This quote indicates that National Highways intended to delay putting through the paperwork to hide the fact that the scheme had been secretly shelved, but the DfT has insisted that the document itself, which it approved, constituted “a change control submission to pause the scheme” and that this was approved.

    On this basis, I asked the DfT whether National Highways was correct to include the scheme in its 2022-23 delivery plan and correct to include it in its spending projections.

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  • Could Lilian be the future of roads once…more?

    I’m not saying the government is disorganised of makes things up as it goes along, but former “future of roads” minister Lilian Greenwood has returned to the Department for Transport (DfT), just over a week after being moved.

    It appears that she will also be a government whip and her responsibilities at the DfT have not yet been officially confirmed on the department’s website.

    Neither have those of new minister Keir Mather, who appears to have maritime and aviation responsibilities.

    Greenwood’s return brings the department back up to its full complement of four junior ministers under transport secretary Heidi Alexander.

    Bizarre is not a strong enough word for such a turnaround.

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  • Dft all at sea as Mather gets maritime gig

    The new transport minister, Keir Mather, appears to have been given the maritime brief, leaving the role of roads minister pretty vacant.

    To mark London International Shipping Week, the Department for Transport has issued a press release with the title More than £1.1 billion investment to boost growth, jobs and skills in UK’s coastal towns and cities.

    And the claim that:

    Funding will help businesses and academia develop real-life technology that reduces carbon emissions from shipping.

    It follows the government’s recent policy of badging decarbonisation spending as aimed at growth, presumably because they are worried what fascist Farage will say and scared of upsetting the even more fascist Trump.

    The press release issued in the name of The Rt Hon Heidi Alexander MP and Keir Mather MP but Mather’s linked profile still does not give him a portfolio.

    Apparently:

    To launch the week, Local Transport Minister, Simon Lightwood, will ring the bell at the London Stock Exchange. The Transport Secretary and Maritime Minister will attend several key events during the week where they will champion UK shipping on the international stage and showcase the UK as a global hub for growth, investment, skills and jobs.

    Mather is not named here as the maritime minister, but a press release from the Transport Select Committee announces that:

    The Transport Committee will question the new Minister for Maritime, Keir Mather MP, as it concludes it inquiry into the Government’s draft revised National Policy Statement for Ports. 

    Let’s hope someone has told Mather what his job is.

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  • MPs slam Labour over cowardice on utilities’ roadworks

    The chair of the Transport Select Committee has hit back at ministers over their response to its recent report on street works, which saw ministers largely reject the committee’s recommendations for fear of upsetting utility companies.

    Committee chair Ruth Cadbury MP did not hold back in her disdain for ministers’ response: 

    The Government’s rejection of all the major recommendations in our report risks making itself simply look unwilling to stand up to utility companies, on behalf of frustrated road users who have to endure unreasonable and often repeated street works delays. 

    Among other recommendations, the committee said the Department for Transport (DfT) should support more local authorities to set up lane rental schemes by allowing them to do so without needing approval from ministers.

    Ministers rejected this call to give up one of their powers, despite the DfT agreeing that the schemes have been effective where used.

    The department suggested that there would be a risk of authorities introducing “poorly targeted schemes” that would increase costs for utility companies. 

    The committee also recommended extending the period for which utility companies are responsible for the road surfaces they have reinstated, from two years after completion to five years, similar to the six years period operating in Scotland. But ministers said they want to see how the Scottish approach plays out. 

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  • Road deaths continue as Starmer plays musical chairs

    As the BBC reports on the “relentless” toll of deaths on Essex’s roads in 2025, we wait to see what impact the latest game of musical chairs at the Department for Transport (DfT) may have on Labour’s long-promised road safety strategy.

    BBC News, Essex reports that crashes have killed 48 people in the county since the turn of the year, almost matching the 50 total for 2024.

    It’s the beginning of September so we are just over two-thirds of the way into the year.

    Adam Pipe, head of roads policing at Essex Police, cited drug-driving, speed and carelessness as the biggest problems seen on the county’s highways.

    “It is relentless,” Mr Pipe added.

    Twenty-five of the 48 deaths on Essex’s roads in 2025 have been sent to the Crown Prosecution Service to consider charging drivers.

    “These are not, in most cases, an accident – there is a behaviour behind it,” Mr Pipe continued.

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  • Exclusive: DfT, NH, ORR caught in Weekend at Bernie’s scam

    I have obtained another document about the secret shelving of the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme that amounts to something of a smoking gun, showing that both National Highways and its regulator deliberately hid from Parliament that fact that the scheme had been “paused” as well as defunded.

    To recap, the Treasury 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.

    Despite this, both organisations said in reports presented to Parliament in July 2022 that the scheme would go ahead in the financial year 2022-23.

    The new document is a Department for Transport (DfT)/ National Highways “change control” form on the subject of a funding change for the 2020-25 Roads Period (RP2) to formalise the outcome of the Spending Review, which overall saw the company’s budget cut from £27.4bn to £24bn.

    The document makes clear that the A1 scheme was “paused” which is obviously incompatible with the claim in National Highways’ 2022-23 Delivery Plan that works would start that year. The ORR repeated this lie in its annual assessment 2021-22.

    The document also makes clear that the scheme had been “deprioritised with no further development funds”. It further states:

    The SR21 settlement includes pausing the development of two schemes with poof VfM. These will be dealt with as separate change control submissions, the timing and communication of which will have to be carefully timed with any broader announcements in response to TSC or Union Connectivity reports and any DCO process considerations.

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  • Ministers on the move

    At the time of writing, there are only four ministers listed on the Department for Transport webpage, with Lilian Greenwood and Mike Kane moving out and just one MP, Keir Mather, coming in.

    The remaining junior ministers, “Lord” Peter Hendy and Simon Lightwood, still have their existing portfolios (rail and local transport respectively) but Mather does not have one. I’m not sure he even has a driving licence.

    We will see how it settles down if/when a fifth minister is announced.

    I should apologise to Greenwood. Last week I mocked her for promising for the second time that progress on pavement parking would be made “very soon”.

    The trouble of course is that Greenwood’s departure will both delay progress on this and mean that her “very soon” promise will not have been made by the current minister.

    She also said the issue was a personal “bugbear” and this may have been her downfall with a No 10 operation determined not to upset drivers.

    Perhaps the new minister will even be a fan of pavement parking, particularly for delivery, delivery, delivery vehicles.

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  • Up to its old tricks: DfT conceals local road upgrade budget

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed that there is a budget for local road upgrades in England for the next four years but has refused to say what that budget is.

    The secret fund will pay for two categories of local authority upgrade – the Major Road Network (MRN) and Large Local Majors (LLM), which previously fell under a funding stream called the National Roads Fund (NRF) that also included National Highways’ funding.

    A DfT spokesperson has effectively confirmed that the NRF no longer exists but did refer to an MRN/LLM programme.

    Using the Freedom of Information Act, I asked the DfT what the individual or combined budgets were for the MRN and LLMs for the period covered by the Spending Review, which is up to and including 2029-30. It implicitly confirmed that this information exists by explicitly refusing to provide it.

    The DfT may be following a tried and tested PR strategy of announcing a large headline figure and then the smaller allocations within that – effectively re-announcing the same cash as it did this week. But it may be that the total budget is never stated.

    The DfT previously told me that the MRN/LLM funding falls under the £24bn capital funding for strategic and local roads up to 2030 that was announced in the spending review, with further announcements “in due course”.

    The government has since announced that the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) will get nearly £25bn up to 2031. A large proportion of this will come from the £24bn, although not all of the cash for the RIS will be capital funding. Nearly 70% of the “interim settlement” of £4.8bn for the current year is capital.

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