"Highways England has been working to address the risks to deliverability, affordability and value for money that were present in 2015"

Strategic roads plan at risk of failure

Decisive action is needed to ensure the success of the Government’s Road Investment Strategy which now faces deliverability and affordability risks following its hasty development according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

It published a report on progress with the strategy today that calls on Highways England and the Department for Transport (DfT) to agree an updated delivery plan for the  remainder of the current five year funding period which ends in 2020.

“The Department and Highways England need to agree a more realistic and affordable plan if they are to provide optimal value from the Road Investment Strategy,” commented head of the NAO Amyas Morse.

The NAO’s report highlights that the DfT planned the strategy in 17 months in order to publish it before the May 2015 General Election. As a result it selected the 112 enhancement projects that make up the strategy without knowing enough about whether the portfolio represented best value.

Furthermore the DfT chose to set a capital programme that was forecast to exceed funding by £652M. It is standard practice to allow for project delays or cancellations but the figure has since increased to £841M as the original plan failed to include some capital costs such as post-project evaluations.

The NAO also points out that 54 schemes are currently programmed to start in 2019-20 which is expected to cause significant disruption to the road network, drive up prices and put pressure on resources.

Highways England is now reviewing its pipeline of projects and has so far identified 16 which present a risk to value for money. It is also exploring ways to manage this risk, including revising project design, cancelling projects or delaying projects to enable further assessment of benefits, alongside the DfT.

Amyas Morse said: “Highways England has been working to address the risks to deliverability, affordability and value for money that were present in 2015, but we are now nearly two years into the five year road investment period.

“Decisive action needs to be taken before the updated delivery plan is published in the summer if shortcomings in the current strategy are not to be carried over into future road investment periods.” The NAO recommends that the updated plan should include a clear statement setting out the impact of any amendments on the following road investment period.

A DfT spokesman commented: “This Government is taking the big decisions for Britain’s future, and we are investing a record £15Bn on road schemes which will cut congestion, speed up journeys and boost the economy across the country.

“As this report acknowledges, we have made significant progress in managing our major roads more efficiently and we are confident Highways England will deliver safe and reliable roads that deliver value for money for the taxpayer.

“We will consider the findings of this report.”