Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: national highways

  • Road runoff plans remain clear as mud

    National Highways has appointed WSP to lead of a group of firms supporting delivery of its Water Quality Plan, but the government-owned company is still refusing to be straight with the public about whether the plan can be afforded.

    WSP, which has been technical partner on the programme since 2024, said that under the new contract it will lead as National Highways’ technical partner, supported by Mott MacDonald, Ramboll, Arup and AECOM, providing programme leadership, technical assurance and delivery support.

    Its announcement appeared to give a hint as to how National Highways may deliver the 250 interventions that it is still promising to make by 2030, but which its regulator previously said were unaffordable.

    The project will identify and deliver designs to treat water running from the highest risk outfalls on the strategic road network. Treatment will include either nature based solutions or mechanical approaches delivered within the existing road boundary.

    Working closely with National Highways, WSP will continue to support the development of a long term, evidence led approach to water quality, ensuring interventions are targeted, proportionate and aligned with wider environmental goals.

    The first bit is perhaps ambiguous as to whether all schemes will be within the existing road boundary, or just the “mechanical approaches”.

    As I have reported, when the Office or Rail and Road advised in November that National Highways could not afford to mitigate 250 sites at high risk of polluting the environment, it said:

    For some schemes land is required beyond the highway boundary. Consequently, estimated costs have more than doubled to between £900,000 and £1.2m per asset.

    So, have the company and WSP scaled back or ruled out some interventions outside the highway boundary to save money, or is it just a badly worded announcement?

    Scaling back would certainly be consistent with the suggestion that interventions should be targeted and proportionate, words that are usually code for cutbacks.

    Replying to a question from me on LinkedIn, David Symons of WSP wrote:

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  • Harris gets delayed rebuke for gaslighting MPs

    Back on the subject of National Highways’ disastrous tree planting on its A14 scheme, the transport secretary has publicly rebuked the company for inaccurate evidence it gave to a Commons committee about who was a paying to (try to) put it right.

    Looking back at the evidence given by its then chief executive, Nick Harris, and his subsequent non apology shows quite how arrogant the company – or at least Harris – is.

    Here’s the original exchange:

    Olivia Blake: I just want to pick up on what all this has cost in terms of the A14. In particular, what has so far been spent on putting this issue right? Going forward, what are the estimated costs of keeping on putting it right, if that makes sense?
    Nick Harris: On the planting, that is a commercial conversation with the contractors. They have not met the quality standards, so that planting is at their cost.
    Chair: Just to clarify, that falls on them, not the public purse.
    Nick Harris: That falls on them, yes.
    Olivia Blake: Is that true for all the trees that you have?
    Nick Harris: It depends on how they have been established. For example, I mentioned earlier the issue of ash dieback. That is a cost that falls on us because that is our estate to manage.
    Olivia Blake: So you are doing good contract management, in your opinion.
    Nick Harris: We are doing good contract management. We are always seeking to improve how we manage our contractors. It is our responsibility.

    Of course, the company was not doing good contract management. In a subsequent letter to the chair, Toby Perkins MP, Harris said he wanted to clarify – not correct – his evidence:

    To date, National Highways has funded the replanting from existing project funds and contingencies, meaning this was absorbed in existing National Highways funding. Whilst we did not request additional funding, the costs have been met by National Highways from public funds, so I am keen to correct any misunderstanding of my evidence.

    Not a whiff of contrition, just a suggestion that his entirely clear but wholly inaccurate previous statement had been misunderstood.

    Perkins was decidedly unimpressed, despite an assurance from National Highways that “it was not Mr Harris’ intention to mislead the Committee”. In a letter to transport secretary Heidi Alexander in December, he wrote:

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  • National Highways manages expectations upwards on road runoff

    National Highways has reiterated its commitment to improving around 250 sites where road runoff provides a high risk of polluting the environment, despite a lower target in the Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) and advice from its regulator that it should come clean about what can really be afforded.

    As I wrote here, although the company’s 2030 Water Quality Plan sets that date to mitigate all confirmed high-risk outfalls and soakaways, the commitment in the new RIS is to mitigate 190–250 high risk sites, implicitly by 2031.

    This is subject to “reviewing a deliverability plan by the end of 2027/28” and “includes those outfalls and soakaways mitigated during Road Period 2 and 2025/26”.

    As defined by the bottom of the range, the RIS pledge is significantly less ambitious than the 2030 plan but higher than what the company said it could afford, as quoted in its regulator’s November 2025 advice on its draft business plan:

    National Highways estimates that between 110 and 130 mitigated assets will be delivered from the allocated budget as part of this programme in RP3.

    However, appearing before the Transport Committee on Wednesday, chief operating officer Duncan Smith said:

    We’re very pleased to say that we’ve been given funding in RIS 3 to mitigate those locations where they have the highest potential risk to the environment. So it’s not saying they are polluting, but based on the receiving watercourse and some of the topography and dynamics of the road that they are supporting, those are ones that are the highest priority for us to invest in. And we think that by 2030, we will have improved around 250 of those locations to ensure that the receiving waterourses are protected.

    I asked National Highways whether this meant that it was sticking to the 2030 plan. A spokesperson referenced the plan and said the company estimated that by the end of 2030 it will have mitigated around 250 sites, adding:

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  • Planning to fail

    A senior National Highways official has told MPs that the company did not create a plan to meet its 2025 casualty reduction target – which it almost certainly missed by a long way – because achieving the target was dependent on factors outside its control.

    The admission finally provides an answer to questions raised, but apparently not followed up, by the company’s regulator about why it did so little early in the 2020-25 roads period (RP2) to achieve its target to reduce killed and seriously injured (KSI) casualties by 50% against a 2005-09 baseline.

    Appearing before the Transport Committee on Wednesday, National Highways bosses were challenged by Labour MP Scott Arthur about the company’s expected failure to meet its target.

    Elliot Shaw, chief customer and strategy officer, said: “We did not have a kind of clearly defined plan because it was reliant on broader factors.”

    This “broader factors” argument is consistent with National Highways’ excuses for missing safety targets over many years and was part of its attempt not to have a casualty reduction target in the new road investment strategy, but I think this is the first time it has been given as a reason for not having a plan to meet the 2025 target.

    It is also consistent with comments from regulator the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), which was highly critical of the company in its Annual Assessment of National Highways’ performance: April 2023 to March 2024:

    While we recognise that not all the actions to reduce KSIs on the SRN are fully within the company’s control we believe that if National Highways had been more proactive in recognising the risks earlier in the road period and developed more robust safety plans sooner this would have increased the likelihood of meeting the target.

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  • “No-one told me we weren’t being transparent”

    National Highways obsessive secrecy is so extreme that no-one told its chair that it did not publish minutes of its board meetings,

    Appearing before the Transport Committee on Wednesday, Gareth Rhys Williams was told by Laurence Turner that similar government agencies and government-owned bodies all publish minutes and was asked:

    Why doesn’t National Highways do the same?

    Rhys Williams appeared totally surprised by the question. He replied:

    Um, when it’s somewhere we haven’t um, consider, um, I inherited that and that hasn’t been top of the list of things to think about, but, um… That’s a good question. Let me run back to you with when we thought about it. Hasn’t, hasn’t come up as something for us to think about before.

    Turner pointed out that the Information Commissioner’s definition document for public, wholly owned public companies, “does suggest that those documents should be published, and some of those other transport bodies have done so for 20 years”.

    He added:

    Now, I appreciate that you’ve not been in post for that time, but if it could be discussed at the board and that this committee updated on the outcome, that would be much appreciated.

    Of course, if the board does discuss it, we may never know.

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  • Growing very wrong

    The shambles that is National Highways’ replacement replacement tree planting alongside the A14 continues, with the government-owned company still not entirely sure what it is doing.

    The BBC reports:

    National Highways has admitted its “performance on tree planting has not been good enough”, as it looks to put in 50,000 more along the A14 where thousands have died.

    The trees will be planted along the new part of the A-road, between Huntingdon and Cambridge, where many of the 860,000 that were originally put in never grew.

    The government-owned company said after “identifying losses caused by several factors”, it had started “a 50,000 tree trial to test new measures and inform our future planting regime”.

    Vhari Russell, the founder of Creating Nature’s Corridors, welcomed the trial but raised concerns about the trees being planted at the wrong time of year.

    I researched and wrote this piece last year for Transport Action Network, which pointed out that to make way for the £1.5bn A14 Cambridge to Huntingdon scheme, 400,000 trees and shrubs were cleared, but National Highways said it would replant more trees than it had felled.

    However, Sky News revealed in 2023 that three-quarters of the 850,000 saplings planted to replace veteran trees felled for the project had died. This would be around 600,000 dead trees. National Highways said it would replant the trees at a cost of £2.9m.

    The BBC notes that while National Highways said in March 2023 that it would replant 160,000 trees and shrubs, a Cambridgeshire County Council meeting last June heard that sections of the £1.5bn road still looked “like a desert”, leading to local residents planting new trees themselves.

    In its one-year-after Post Opening Project Evaluation for the scheme – published in September 2024, four and a half years after it opened – National Highways said:

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  • RIS 3 to feature “Safety National Programme”

    Back on the subject of what National Highways might actually deliver by way of safety improvements during the new Road Investment Strategy (RIS), a minister has confirmed that there will at least be one of the new-style National Programmes with “safety” as a title.

    With the 2026-31 strategy (RIS 3) is set to be published this week, probably Thursday, here’s what last summer’s draft RIS said:

    We are considering introducing new National Programmes to deliver defined outputs that support RIS objectives or commitments which are not within other programmes (for example, supporting specific programmes of activity around safety and environmental mitigation). These types of projects would have been funded via the Designated Funds in RIS1 and RIS2 but by making them distinct programmes we can more effectively monitor their delivery and outcomes. If these National Programmes were to feature in RIS3, their core purposes would remain the same as the Designated Funds, but they will provide a different delivery and funding model to complement the more flexible Designated Funds. If approved, the scope and size of Designated Funds will need to be reviewed as we define exactly what should be considered under each programme.

    In response to a written parliamentary question from Helen Morgan, Liberal Democrat MP for North Shropshire, roads minister Lilian Greenwood said:

    National Highways has assessed the safety performance of the 6-mile section of the A483 between Oswestry and the Welsh Border, which includes the Llynclys Crossroads. Improvements to the route are being considered for delivery as part of the Safety National Programme within RIS3, which is due to be published later in March.

    The background to this is that two years ago Morgan (pictured) welcomed plans to cut the speed limit and install speed cameras at Llynclys Crossroads but this was subject to funding that never materialised. Now National Highways is believed to be looking at a roundabout, which would be a lot more expensive.

    It remains to be seen what the budget for the National Programme will be and indeed whether the A483 will be part of it, but a dedicated fund for safety is an improvement on the “Safety and Congestion” designated fund in the last RIS.

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  • Third time lucky on National Highways’ most dangerous roads?

    With the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) due imminently, does the latest safety report from National Highways’ regulator give any reliable hints about what the government-owned company will be expected to do to improve the inherent safety of its roads?

    While the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) seems to be on a mission to give National Highways a free pass as it fails badly to meet its safety targets, its recent annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network suggests that National Highways is planning to make at least some improvements.

    iRAP star rating provides an objective measure of the level of ‘built-in’ safety for vehicle occupants, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrians. It uses star ratings on a five-point scale, where a 1-star rating reflects a high-risk road with little safety infrastructure, while 5-star indicates a road with minimal risk, designed for safety.

    As part of our work to assess National Highways’ approach to improving safety we asked the company to demonstrate how it uses iRAP assessments to inform the development of safety interventions on the SRN. We have reviewed case studies and evidence the company has used to develop schemes currently in feasibility and design stages, for potential delivery in road period 3 (RP3).

    The report concludes:

    The evidence provided shows that National Highways is applying iRAP analysis to existing 1- and 2-star routes to identify the interventions most likely to improve safety outcomes. These include measures such as improved lane delineation, enhanced signing, pedestrian and cyclist safety improvements, speed management and access control (where road users join the SRN from local or other major roads). The aim of these interventions is to raise the star rating of the route and reduce the predicted number of KSI casualties over time.

    A cynic like me might think identifying potential interventions is pretty meaningless unless there is a chance of delivering them.

    But the flipside of this is that both the company and its regulator must have some expectation that resources will be provided in RIS 3 for this purpose.

    The problem is that the draft RIS 3, published in the summer, is so vague.

    Let’s start with what National Highways said in its 2023 Initial Report for the RIS that was due to start in 2025 until the new government put it back a year:

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  • Did Cabinet Office comms diktat cost lives?

    The Office of Rail and Road’s (ORR) annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network, published today, provides some explanation for the Department for Transport (DfT) telling National Highways to cut back its safety plan for the current (interim) year.

    By way of a quick recap, I exclusively revealed that transport secretary Heidi Alexander told the company of which she is the sole owner to remove one action from its planned Safety Action Plan 2025-26. This was the HGV “know your zones” campaign. National Highways also curtailed two other road safety awareness campaigns.

    All three had the expected impact of reducing serious casualties.

    In its latest report, the ORR comments on National Highways’ Interim Delivery Plan, which included the safety plan:

    As we reported last year, government mandated a reduction in budgets for communication campaigns in 2024, which resulted in National Highways scaling back some of its proposed activities.

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  • Even less committed to road safety

    National Highways has effectively confirmed that it will halve the budget of its Driving for Better business campaign, which aims to reduce work‑related road risk.

    Fleet News has reported that:

    Fleet News understands that details around the future funding of the road safety programme are included in a draft business plan submitted by National Highways in response to the Government’s draft Road Investment Strategy (RIS).

    Sources suggest its annual budget will be halved from around £750,000 to £375,000 for the next financial year (2026/27).

    It notes that:

    Asked about the future of the Driving for Better Business campaign by Fleet News, National Highways wouldn’t be drawn on specifics, but said it remained “committed” to the programme.

    A National Highways spokesperson added: “National Highways funding for this programme continues, but we are reviewing as part of developing our plans for the next ‘road period’.

    “As with all our work, we regularly review to ensure we deliver the best value for taxpayer.”

    The non-denial, the use of the word “committed”, and the reference to “the best value for taxpayer” (sic) all provide a strong indication that the story is true.

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