Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: funding

  • “Project Speed” A66 scheme slows to a crawl

    The only thing speedy about National Highways’ “Project Speed” A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme is that the goalposts are moving faster than the company can keep up with, with costs skyrocketing and the construction now due to take nine years.

    Last month Highways magazine reported that the cost had shot up to a staggering £2,670m (and would run from 2027-2030), as Jo Jarvis, National Highways’ director of indirects and roads procurement, told an industry event.

    But the government has now been accused of leaking a major delay to the scheme out “in the small print”.

    Indeed, the Treasury boasted in the Budget document that it was

    Giving the green light for main construction works to begin on the A66 next month, delivering a continuous 50-mile dual carriageway between the M6 and A1(M), strengthening connectivity between the North-East and Cumbria.

    It added:

    The project will be delivered through a revised nine-year programme, with phased construction commencing in November 2026.

    So that’s a completion date of around 2035 and a build time of nearly two road investment strategies. But why? Well it has become unaffordable in the short term – because the costs have gone up. The BBC reports National Highways saying that

    the first section between Penrith and Temple Sowerby was expected to be completed by 2031.

    And a spokesperson said:

    We’re building in stages, which keeps the project affordable while reducing disruption and minimising environmental impacts.

    Basically, they are having to spread the cost over nine years because it is so expensive but, as local MP Tim Farron points out:

    (more…)

  • Clearing the decks?

    By way of further tidying up of the things that the DfT is very poor at making clear, the department has now published the definitive list of which local road upgrade schemes it scrapped and which were withdrawn by their local authority.

    To recap, 42 schemes went into a review last year, one of which was green-lit in December, with a further 16 said in March to be continuing, leaving 25 in a zombie state until the DfT confirmed earlier this month that they had been put out of their misery.

    Now the DfT has issued an October 2026 update on the Major Road Network and Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) programme.

    This states that, during the review, 10 schemes were withdrawn on the grounds that the promoting local authority could no longer afford its funding contribution.

    Those schemes are:

    • Shrewsbury North Western Relief Road (NWRR)
    • Warrington Western Link Road
    • Rocket Junction Liverpool – M62 J4 / A58
    • Sheffield Innovation Corridor Road
    • A13/ A126 East Facing Slip Roads
    • A1237 YORR dualling Phase 2 – Wetherby Rd to A19
    • Aylesbury Eastern Link
    • Shipley Eastern Congestion Relief Road
    • West Quay Road Realignment, Southampton
    • A17 Pullover Junction

    The picture I have used here is of the NWRR, whose unaffordability I have written about quite a lot and which was finally cancelled by Shropshire County Council in February.

    The 15 remaining schemes were confirmed as being removed from the programme (i.e. by the DfT) following the finalisation of the review.

    Those schemes are:

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  • England expects…

    Further to my post last week about the Department for Transport (DfT) spinning the so-called transparency reports on local authority highways maintenance, I have unpicked a bit more about what has – and hasn’t – happened.

    As I wrote, the headline

    Extra £220 million released for pothole repairs as figures show record road maintenance spend by councils

    Is not about new money but councils qualifying for less than half of the extra £525m of incentive funding that is in theory available for the current year.

    In fact, the DfT has clarified that

    all eligible councils met the requirement needed to unlock their full incentive payment for this quarter, because they have published a transparency report. This means these councils will receive £220 million in incentive payments this quarter.

    The confusing part is that only £440m of the £525m is genuinely “incentive funding”.

    As it says here, mayoral strategic authorities received

    all highway maintenance funding in full via their integrated settlement in April 2026.

    Albeit that:

    It is expected that all local highway authorities participate in the transparency reporting for the full 4-year period, regardless of incentive.

    In fact, Birmingham City Council, which operates 1% of local authority roads in England but is part of the West Midlands Combined Authority, did not publish a report.

    As for the claim that:

    Further funding will be released later in the year only if councils reach their performance targets, and can be withheld if they fail to reach them as part of the government’s efforts to hold councils to account.

    As I have pointed out, the “performance targets”, are in fact good practice reporting requirements, set out here, plus

    Spending at least the value of DfT’s highways maintenance funding on highways maintenance, ensuring this is the case in all, not just most, local highway authorities.

    The spin doctors love that word “ensuring”, don’t they? But how do you ensure that everyone complies based on an expectation that everyone will comply?

    Ironically, the DfT has pointed out that

    Figures from local councils … shows (sic) that councils are starting to properly invest in their roads with £4.9 billion total being spent this year…

    Meaning that they are due to spend three times the value of DfT’s highways maintenance funding on highways maintenance.

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  • Hants reluctant to pull the plug on floundering £187m scheme

    One of the local road schemes that survived a recent Department for Transport (DfT) cull appears to be in trouble after a major development that is mentioned 17 times in its outline business case (OBC) was shelved.

    But Hampshire County Council has said it is committed to progressing the A326 Waterside Improvement scheme, which is awaiting a decision on Local Road Network/Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) funding, despite Associated British Ports (ABP) shelving the Solent Gateway 2 project.

    The council submitted a planning application for the scheme in April and in May submitted its OBC to the DfT as part of its bid for LLM funding of £161.5m, representing 85% of a scheme cost of £187m.

    The “Waterside” area lies between Southampton Water and the New Forest National Park and the scheme includes improvement works at eight junctions along the A326 corridor, widening two sections and active travel improvements.

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  • DfT spins “transparency” reports

    It might have been expected that the government would use so-called transparency reports on local authority highways maintenance for spin purposes but today’s announcement from the Department for Transport (DfT) today breaks all (non-existent) records for the cherry-picking of data.

    In fact, almost all the data in the announcement seems to duplicate existing official data.

    The story behind the headline

    Extra £220 million released for pothole repairs as figures show record road maintenance spend by councils

    is that councils have so far qualified for less than half of the extra £525m of incentive funding that is in theory available for the current year.

    The DfT also says:

    Further funding will be released later in the year only if councils reach their performance targets, and can be withheld if they fail to reach them as part of the government’s efforts to hold councils to account.

    But, as I have discussed, there are no real performance targets, just good practice reporting requirements – and the good practice is *not* filling in potholes!

    In fact, as it says here:

    (more…)

  • There is still no money in the “Structures Fund”

    My piece about the Department for Transport (DfT) finally admitting that the zombie local road upgrade schemes are not coming back is the lead story on Local Transport Today, along with a comment piece on the issue of (lack of) transparency.

    As I report, the DfT is still refusing to say how much of the £1bn announced in June last year will be given to its notional Structures Fund and how much will go to local road upgrades, despite clearing the dead wood from the latter.

    In some ways, it doesn’t really matter as the Structures fund covers things that could just as easily have come under the major road network/large local majors (MRN/LLM) funding stream, which saw around 20 zombie schemes finally put out of their misery over the past week.

    But the lack of transparency is typical of a department that still likes to hold its cards very close to its chest, even under a government supposedly committed to candour.

    To recap, in June 2025 Treasury and DfT ministers announced “£1 billion to enhance and repair run down transport infrastructure and futureproof England’s road network”, which led a lot of people to think the Structures Fund that was part of the announcement would get a billion quid.

    But the penny has now dropped – with most people – that the billion was also to pay for MRN/LLM schemes over the next few years.

    The DfT has repeatedly refused to say how much was in each pot, but hinted that it needed to nail down which schemes were still in the MRN/LLM. This week, however, despite confirming that none of the schemes that were left in limbo will go forward, it will still not say what the split is between structures and upgrades.

    It has said that it will be announcing awards from the Structures Fund in the Autumn (don’t hold your breath) but I go back to my point that if you don’t have a pot of money in a fund and in fact retrofit your budget to what you decide to do, it isn’t really a fund.

    This also brings me back to the government’s ludicrous claim that it had to cull a lot of schemes from the MRN/LLM because the previous government didn’t fund it properly.

    Apart from anything else, it was the current government that chose to split the £1bn that it did manage to find (about of £92bn) between structures and upgrades. It appears to have been a sensible choice, but it was a choice and a choice that resulted in a cull of upgrade schemes.

    One response to “There is still no money in the “Structures Fund””

    1. Clearing the decks? – Transport Insights

      […] have is any indication of how much of the £1bn announced last year will go to MRN/LLM schemes and how much to the mythical Structures Fund. An announcement on the latter may be […]

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  • Exclusive: DfT finally kills off all zombie schemes

    The Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed that all the local road schemes that were not listed in March as continuing following a review launched last year have now been officially pulled.

    It has told me that it is progressing only the 16 major road network/large local major (MRN/LLM) schemes confirmed in March and that local authorities with schemes that are not among the 16 have been informed.

    Until this point, reporting has only been ad hoc and sporadic. Following my reporting last Friday, I have now seen several more local and specialist media reports of MPs and/or local authorities being told that their MRN/LLM schemes, which were apparently still under review, are no more.

    For example, the Gazette and Herald has confirmed the demise of the A350 Melksham Bypass.

    In a letter to local LibDem MP Brian Mathew, roads minister Justin Madders blamed the Tories for not funding the scheme, and the DfT told me that MRN/LLM programme launched by the previous government was “not properly funded”.

    But the current government boasted last July that it had found “over £92 billion from the Spending Review settlement” to deliver

    the biggest boost to England’s transport infrastructure in a generation

    Out of this £92bn, the government chose to allocate just £1bn for local roads, to be shared between the so-called structures fund and the MRN/LLM.

    Madders made no mention of climate change but Mathew wrote on Facebook:

    I will keep pushing for other ways to ease transport worries, particularly better public transport and improved rail and bus services to get more people out of their cars.

    Meanwhile, Highways magazine reported that:

    Cheshire East Council is ‘deeply disappointed’ that the Department for Transport (DfT) has removed the planned improvements to the A500 from the Government’s Major Road Network Programme

    And the BBC has reported (separately) that the Blyth Relief Road, the A509 Isham bypass and the M5 Junction 9 scheme have all been canned.

    Essex Live has reported:

    Major A127 improvement work plans completely scrapped in ‘extremely disappointing’ move

    Notts CC leader Mick Barton with East Midlands mayor Claire Ward

    I have also worked out why the DfT has referred to 25 schemes remaining under review following the March announcement that 16 of 42 schemes put under review in July 2025 would continue.

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  • Zombie schemes finally being put out of their misery

    It looks like ministers have begun the task of officially putting the 26 zombie local road schemes out of their misery, more than six months after it became clear to anyone who was paying attention that they were all but dead.

    As I reported in LTT/TransportXtra in July:

    Confusion surrounds a raft of local road upgrades after a Government review announced last summer, with many councils still awaiting decisions on their bids amid huge funding pressures.

    The DfT said in March that of 42 schemes major road network (MRN) or large local major (LLM) schemes placed under review as part of the 2025 Spending Review, just 16 “will continue”.

    This left 26 schemes in limbo…

    There were supposed to be formal decisions on these “later in the summer”, but it never happened.

    Now, a couple of schemes have been officially killed off.

    The Alton Herald reports:

    The Government has scrapped plans for major improvements to the A31 through Farnham, according to the town’s MP.

    Gregory Stafford, the Conservative MP for Farnham and Bordon, has called the decision a “betrayal” and accused the Government of failing his constituents.

    Mr Stafford said Roads Minister Justin Madders telephoned him on Thursday evening (October 8) to confirm the scheme would not proceed.

    Given that it has been obvious for a while that the scheme was canned and that the minister phoned him personally, Stafford throwing his toys out of his pram seems a bit ungrateful.

    people standing in a field looking at a map

    Meanwhile, the Derbyshire Times reports:

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  • Spring, summer, autumn: Councils still in the dark over zombie schemes

    Now that the summer is officially over, I have returned to the issue of the zombie local road schemes that appeared in the spring not to have survived a review – and it appears that promises to clarify their status in “the summer” have not been honoured.

    The story starts with a review of Major Road Network and Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) programme announced last year, which led to the announcement in March that 16 schemes “will progress”, leaving 26 effectively, but not officially scrapped.

    As I have reported, the DfT said that these schemes were still under review, with a decision expected “later in the summer”.

    But now it’s September.

    Wiltshire Council told me that it has not heard anything further about its funding bid for the A350 Melksham bypass, while Gloucestershire CC seems to have picked up that the can had been kicked further down the road.

    In July it indicated that it was going to carry on progressing its scheme for new M5 junction and a bypass for the A46 near Tewkesbury, including spending more public money on it, but noted that the government funding was still uncertain. A paper to its Cabinet stated:

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  • Another Schrödinger’s road scheme

    Confusion abounds over which local road upgrades are potentially going ahead with Department for Transport (DfT) funding, something that seems to originate with the department not being straightforward about the status of schemes that were culled in a recent review.

    In the context of the government’s statement that it will cut the DfT’s capital investment budget by £700m to help pay for the Defence Investment Plan, the BBC reports:

    Council chiefs fear a planned new motorway junction could be “sacrificed” in the government’s proposal to reallocate funds to defence.
    …
    County councillor Julian Tooke, who leads on infrastructure on the council, said: “We are very concerned that Gloucestershire’s need for improvements to junction 9 of the M5 and the A46 may get sacrificed.”

    The Department for Transport (DfT) said it will not comment on funding prospects for junction 9 at this stage

    The penny does not seem to have dropped that the scheme was effectively shelved when it was not among the 16 Major Road Network and Large Local Majors (MRN/LLM) schemes that it was announced in March would

    continue following the 2025 MRN review

    That was a reference to this announcement last July, when the DfT gave a list of 42 schemes “under consideration” – i.e. being reviewed. The M5 scheme was among them, albeit that it had only been listed for outline business case development costs.

    By implication, it is not “continuing”. I don’t know why the DfT cannot just say that.

    In April, Transport Action Network wrote to the DfT to ask for clarification of the 26 schemes that were in the original list of (42) schemes under consideration and not part of the “continuing” 16.

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