Transport Insights

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

Author

Chris Ames

Tag: road-safety

  • National Highways publishes safety inaction plan

    National Highways will deliver very little by way of actual safety improvements on its network during the current financial year, and appears determined to delay admitting publicly that it has dropped its 2040 “Zero Harm” target.

    The government-owned company has published its Interim Period Delivery Plan April 2025 – March 2026, where the word interim reflects the fact that it is operating during the year between road investment strategies.

    The document also includes (as an annex) a safety action plan, which existed before the delivery plan but which National Highways, the Office of Rail and Road, and the Department for Transport all refused to publish in the meantime.

    The delivery plan states that the company will spend “up to” £32m on network interventions to improve safety on high-risk roads, including post collision response and suicide prevention. I wonder if that figure may end up being reduced by “up to” 50% as dodgy retailers would say.

    But the lack of commitment in the safety action plan to actual action is astonishing. It states “5 to 7 no. safety designated fund schemes”. This compares with 76 between 2020 and 2025.

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  • DfT doubles down on planned publication

    National Highways’ delivery plan and safety action plan for the current financial year will be published this month, the Department for Transport (DfT) has told me.

    The government-owned company’s Interim Settlement for the current year, during which no road investment strategy is in place, states that to support progress towards achieving its December 2025 casualty reduction target “National Highways must deliver a series of safety improvements set out in its Safety Action Plan for 2025/26”.

    The safety action plan has not been published, but in May roads minister Lilian Greenwood told fellow Labour MP Ruth Cadbury, who is chair of the Transport Select Committee, that it “will form part of National Highways 2025-26 delivery plan for the Interim Settlement which will be published in the coming months”.

    I have requested the plan under the Freedom of Information Act from the DfT, National Highways and the Office of Rail and Road but each refused my request on the spurious grounds that a document that was not produced for publication is intended for future publication alongside another document.

    In response to a review request, the DfT has now told me: “We expect the requested information to be published in July 2025.”

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  • National Highways cuts delays…on publishing its plans

    National Highways’ delivery plan and a separate “safety action plan” for the current financial year will be published “this summer”, the government-owned company has said, following a delay to last year’s delivery plan and the outright suppression of an “enhanced safety plan” for the year.

    However, National Highways, the Department for Transport (DfT) and regulator the Office of Rail and have Road (ORR) all refused freedom of information (FOI) requests to release the safety action plan until the company can put its spin on it in the delivery plan, which is always a glossy promotional document produced at public expense to boost the company’s public image.

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