The Treasury has released more details of highways spending plans after yesterday’s budget.
Five schemes on the Strategic Road Network have been scrapped: The dualling of A1 Morpeth to Ellingham (pictured) which received its Development Consent Order in May, the new A5036 Princess Way road in Liverpool, the dualling of the A358 Taunton to Southfields which was paused in August, improvements to Junction 8 of the M27 near Southampton, and changes to the A47 Great Yarmouth Vauxhall Roundabout designed to improve traffic flow.
Elsewhere, it committed to progressing key strategic road schemes, such as dualling sections of the A47, where work has begun to improve connectivity between East Anglia and the North, and on the A57, where work will start in the coming weeks to improve journey times between Sheffield and Greater Manchester.
Roads investment in 2025-26 will be funded through an interim roads settlement, and the third Road Investment Strategy will be set out in the next phase of the Spending Review. The government will also move toward feasibility work on improvements to the A75 by providing up to £5 million in 2025‑26.
Meanwhile the Government is saying that it will go beyond its promise to to fix an additional 1 million potholes per year and providing a £500 million cash increase on 2024-25 local roads maintenance baseline funding.
It has also committed to spending more than £200 million in 2025-26 to accelerate the rollout of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, including funding to support local authorities to install on-street charge points across England. There’s also £100 million for cycling and walking infrastructure in 2025-26, to support Local Authorities to install cycling infrastructure and upgrade pavements and paths.
It confirmed plans to cap bus fares at a new rate of £3. There are also mass transit projects getting funding, such as the renewal of Sheffield’s Supertram system and the continued development of West Yorkshire Mass Transit.
(Picture – Mapillary)
