Tag: funding

• Regulator finds holes in Reeves’ pothole cash claims

  The government is having to backtrack on its big announcement about funding for council road maintenance in England “doubling” after I pointed out to the official statistics regulator that it was full of spin.

  My biggest problem with this Treasury Press release in November was that it failed to take inflation into account by stating whether the promised future increase will be in real terms or cash terms.

  Of course it’s in cash terms, which can always be used to make spending increases look bigger than they are in real terms.

  The Office for Statistics Regulation at the UK Statistics Authority agreed with this point and the Treasury has promised to be clearer in future.

  The other main trick that the spin doctors pulled was to compare two individual financial years that were five years apart, i.e. 2024-25 (the last funding settlement determined by the Tories) and 2029-30.

  This meant a degree of cherry picking and using a previous figure rather as a comparator, rather than what would have been spent.

  

  Note that chancellor Rachel Reeves said:

  We are doubling the funding promised by the previous government

  (more…)

  2026.01.19

• Full of holes

  The mixed messages coming from the latest Department for Transport (DfT) press release on English local authority approaches to road maintenance are mind-blowing, with the idea that prevention is better than cure getting lost in simplistic headlines.

  How well is your council fixing your roads?

  New map rates how record government pothole funding is being used.

  

  Absent from the top line is the idea that fixing roads and filling in potholes is a sign of failure.

  • new red, amber, green ratings let public see which local highway authorities are fixing potholes effectively
  • government’s record £7.3 billion funding announced at budget is helping councils get on with fixing nation’s roads
  • record investment will drive real improvement, saving drivers money by preventing costly repairs and restoring pride in communities

  The press release explains that red, amber, green (RAG) ratings are based on three key areas:

  • the condition of local roads
  • how much LHAs are spending on road repairs
  • whether they are following best practice in maintaining highways

  Eventually, the DfT gets around to explaining what they mean by best practice, and it isn’t “patching up potholes”:

  Those that scored ‘green’, like Leeds, Sandwell and Manchester, were able to demonstrate they are following best practice, such as investing in more long-term preventative measures rather than just patching up potholes, while also maintaining good road conditions and investing significantly into improving local roads. 

  Despite all the tough talk, the DfT has created a system of perverse incentives, where the councils with a red rating get *more* money.

  2026.01.12

• Look over there, Greenwood says as active travel funding falls

  With Labour cutting funding for active travel and being coy about whether its forthcoming cycling and walking investment strategy (CWIS3) will include meaningful targets, transport minister Lilian Greenwood has gone in for the diversionary tactic of reheating the culture wars.

  On Sunday The Guardian reported pressure from campaigners for CWIS3 to include targets beyond the feeble – and clearly unmeasurable – aspiration to make walking, wheeling and cycling “easy, safe, and accessible for everyone” by 2035.

  

  On Wednesday, Greenwood answered – or rather failed to answer – a question from shadow transport secretary Richard Holden on:

  (more…)

  2025.12.12

• MPs back backwater buses boost

  The Commons Transport Committee has welcomed the news that government funding to local authorities for bus services will take into account how rural an area is for the first time

  Although the committee described the news as an “announcement” by the Department for Transport, it was a little bit buried in a larger announcement last week of the consolidation of various existing bus funding streams into capital and revenue Local Authority Bus Grant (LABG) totalling nearly £3bn over four years.

  The webpage for LABG revenue allocations: 2026 to 2029 states:

  The individual revenue allocations were determined using a revised 2025 to 2026 formula that considered the needs of each local transport authority, taking into account population size, levels of deprivation, bus service provision and rurality. 

  

  The committee raised the issue of rural buses in its Buses connecting communities report, published in August.

  Chair Ruth Cadbury said: 

  (more…)

  2025.12.10

• Smoke and mirrors on bus funding

  Ministers have announced what they are branding a “3bn boost for buses” but, as is happening increasingly often these days, it’s a continuation of existing funding – and possibly a cut – dressed up as new money.

  The good news is that:

  Multi-year funding gives local authorities the funds they need to provide passengers with lower fares, more frequent and reliable services and safer journeys.

  

  Basically, the Department for Transport (DfT) has consolidated a number of existing funding streams such as Bus Service Improvement Plans (BSIP) cash and Local Authority Bus Service Operators Grant (BSOG) into capital and revenue Local Authority Bus Grant (LABG).

  It looks as if the funding for the £3 bus fare cap (which is short-term) is separate and, in the short term, it looks like revenue funding is lower next year than this.

  Cash for zero emission buses is also (I think) separate.

  But with funding going through city regions, it’s often hard to work this out.

  The DfT also seems to be doing quite a lot of rounding up: to get to £3bn

  Almost £700 million of funding will be allocated to local authorities every single year up to 2028 to 2029 and can be spent however they want.

  It’s worth remembering that Boris Johnson also promised a “£3 billion bus revolution” back in the days when £3bn was a lot of money.

  2025.12.05

• Thames Tunnel hole gets bigger

  The Financial Times has picked up on the spiralling costs of the Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), as well as the huge sums that we will all be putting in, before private finance comes riding over the hill.

  Taxpayers will contribute more than £3bn to the Lower Thames Crossing despite ministers’ plans to seek private finance for the most expensive new highway in British history.

  The cost of the project, the first wholly new crossing across the river Thames to the east of London in 60 years, has risen from an estimate of between £5.3bn and £6.8bn in 2017 to almost £11bn, the Treasury has confirmed.

  

  The first figure, the £3bn of public money, may be news to some people but it is simply adding £1.2bn of historic costs to the £1.8bn that the Treasury has allocated across this financial year and the next three, including nearly a billion in last week’s Budget.

  But the cost increase to a current price tag of £11bn means a big rise in the part that the government is hoping to get private finance to contribute, to get them into a hole on a project that is otherwise unaffordable.

  The government hopes it will secure about £7.5bn of private capital, up from a figure of £6.3bn set out in March by National Highways, the public body responsible for the scheme between Kent and Essex.

  Predictably, Transport Action Network (TAN) has condemned the “utterly predictable” news, which it says will lead to significantly higher tolls being charged at the existing Dartford Crossing and the LTC.

  TAN has previously calculated that tolls at Dartford could triple to pay for the LTC. Director Chris Todd said:

  (more…)

  2025.12.03

• Reeves seeks more spin for her buck

  With Rachel Reeves under fire for her pre-Budget spin, it’s worth another look at how misleading her claims were about the post-Budget announcement of local highways maintenance funding for the last four years of the Parliament.

  The unfortunate thing is, Labour is (for now) giving councils the funding boost and medium-term certainty they need, but mangling the message.

  There is a significant – and positive – emphasis on councils doing preventative treatments, which takes the emphasis away from filling potholes in the short term but should mean there are fewer to fill later on.

  This may explain why, as I have said, Reeves again misstated the Labour manifesto pledge to fix a million extra potholes for every year of the Parliament, now only talking about doing so by the end of the period.

  

  But (according to the Treasury press release) she also said:

  We are doubling the funding promised by the previous government

  This is, I am afraid to say, doubly misleading, as the small print in the press release explains that it compares:

  £1.067bn funding allocated by the previous Government for FY2024/25, to £2.134bn funding allocated by this Government for FY2029/30

  So, firstly, it isn’t money promised by the Tories but actually allocated.

  And this confirms that the claim is based on two years that are five years apart and therefore subject to inflation.

  The Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR) has published Regulatory guidance on intelligent transparency, which states:

  (more…)

  2025.12.01

• No surprise! Reeves pulls pothole cash out of the hat

  Ministers have announced £7.3bn capital funding for local highway maintenance in England between 2026-27 and 2029-30, keeping the £500m annual “uplift” , now badged as “incentive funding”, with councils required to jump through as yet undefined hoops to get three quarters of the extra cash.

  As I reported, the Budget deliberately held back details of this cash to allow a new announcement, stating at the time only that there would be “over £2 billion” in 2029-30.

  The cash will gradually ramp up, from £1,617m next year to £2,134m with the largest increase around a quarter of a billion pounds coming in the final year.

  

  The Department for Transport (DfT) said that “as the case in 2025 to 2026, a portion of this funding will be designated as incentive funding”. This ranges from £525m next year to £540m.

  This funding will be subject to local highway authorities demonstrating that they comply with best practice in highways maintenance, for example, by spending all the Department for Transport’s capital grant on highways maintenance and adopting more preventative maintenance.

  The DfT said that at least 25% of the extra cash will be dependent on local highway authorities publishing transparency reports. Rather confusingly, it said all incentive funding will be withheld if reports are not published. 

  The DfT said that in 2026-27, (a further) 50% of the incentive funding will be subject to local highways authorities’ performance.

  Of course they don’t know how it will work yet:

  (more…)

  2025.11.30

• No pledge of more cash as climate change wrecks rail routes

  I’ve previously raised the question about whether the government is putting sufficient cash into our transport networks to fund climate change adaption, with ministers often just saying they are putting in more money rather than asserting that it’s enough.

  But a new written parliamentary answer from transport minister Keir Mather doesn’t even bother to address the question of whether there will be more money.

  Asked by Sarah Dyke, Liberal Democrat MP for Glastonbury and Somerton:

  To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if she will provide additional funding to help mitigate ongoing soil moisture deficit effects for railway companies.

  

  Mather gave a long and rambling reply on behalf of Heidi Alexander that began with a description of the problem…

  The Department for Transport funds Network Rail to operate, maintain, and develop the nation’s railway infrastructure. As the climate changes, we expect to see hotter, drier summers, and therefore we will expect to encounter more instances of soil moisture deficit.

  (more…)

  2025.11.28

• Labour repents over pothole pledge repeat

  The Treasury has insisted that the Labour government remains committed to fixing an extra million potholes across England in each year of the Parliament, despite some very contradictory language in yesterday’s Budget document.

  And it looks as if funding for local authority highway maintenance may be restored to this year’s level to do this, with a funding announcement deliberately held back to get new headlines.

  Yesterday I noted that the Treasury’s official Budget document had redefined Labour’s manifesto commitment as “to fix an additional 1 million potholes per year by the end of the Parliament”, rather than every year along the way

  

  However, a Treasury spokesperson has told me that the “every year” commitment remains intact.

  I also noted, correctly, that none of the Budget documents had stated what funding would be for the years between now and 2029-30, when the commitment is over £2bn annually.

  This year’s funding is around £1.6bn, which is said to include an “uplift” of £500m on base funding of £500m.

  (more…)

  2025.11.27