Chancellor to outline £25bn road upgrade projects

[B1018 A120 M11]

Story on the BBC, here.

Or alternatively: Chancellor to announce loads of stuff we knew was almost certainly happening anyway in order to look good. Is there actually *anything* in here that's new?

I particularly love this:

"Starting construction on the A428 to improve journeys between Cambridge and Milton Keynes and widening the A12 in east England"

What does that even *mean*...?

Anyway, er... discuss.

[c2R]

At this point its pretty much campaigning for a general election rather than serious roads promises...

[Chris5156]

The fact he is "confirming" rather than "announcing" says a lot. It does sound like it's already been announced at some point and in some form, and he is just saying it again.

That said, the funding is for 2020-2025, which is RIS2, and the final list of RIS2 schemes is (I think) still yet to be absolutely finalised. So it's possible this is a step towards that happening. The A428 upgrade and some improvements to the A12 are RIS2 schemes for sure.

[Bryn666]

They will have no intention of delivering any of these once the inevitable storm comes and all resources are diverted to keeping the ahem... "project" alive.

They might as well promise to build that motorway to the moon right now for what anything is worth.

[B1018 A120 M11]

"You might think that... I couldn't possibly comment..."

[roadtester]

They will have no intention of delivering any of these once the inevitable storm comes and all resources are diverted to keeping the ahem... "project" alive.

They might as well promise to build that motorway to the moon right now for what anything is worth.

They will have to divert whatever funds they still have to filling in the Channel Tunnel.

[alans]

The £25bn comes from the national roads fund,which is the ,as promised,amount raised from VED (road tax) this was ring fenced some while ago by the treasury.
Good to see the A46 Newark bypass mentioned and also the A66 trans pennine route ,perhaps the chancellor will mention the Stonehenge and LTC schemes also in his address to the conservative conference,as the 2 schemes remain to be finalised as to how they will be funded now that PFI is ruled out,they are very much needed
I will watch with interest

[bmwtastic]

The £25bn comes from the national roads fund,which is the ,as promised,amount raised from VED (road tax) this was ring fenced some while ago by the treasury.
Good to see the A46 Newark bypass mentioned and also the A66 trans pennine route ,perhaps the chancellor will mention the Stonehenge and LTC schemes also in his address to the conservative conference,as the 2 schemes remain to be finalised as to how they will be funded now that PFI is ruled out,they are very much needed
I will watch with interest

A lot depends on what happens next for the government and Brexit .. would be nice for Newark!

[jackal]

I was quite amused by the Construction Index's lede:

The Conservative Party’s latest attempt to rally support and deflect attention from the morality and probity of its leader is to promise to spend billions of pounds on building things.

That said it's great to have confirmation of the new government's commitment to RIS2 - notwithstanding their many failings this commitment to national infrastructure distinguishes them from the opposition. As we know very little about sequencing, there is an announcement worth making here, as the BBC snippet suggests:

The first projects to be funded by the £25bn pot will be:

Completing the dualling of the A66 Trans-Pennine expressway and the A46 Newark bypass
Improving the M60 Simister Island interchange in Manchester
Starting construction on the A428 to improve journeys between Cambridge and Milton Keynes and widening the A12 in east England

[KeithW]

Story on the BBC, here.

Or alternatively: Chancellor to announce loads of stuff we knew was almost certainly happening anyway in order to look good. Is there actually *anything* in here that's new?

I particularly love this:

"Starting construction on the A428 to improve journeys between Cambridge and Milton Keynes and widening the A12 in east England"

What does that even *mean*...?

Anyway, er... discuss.

These schemes have been discussed in some depth on this forum and elsewhere
A428 schemes
viewtopic.php?f=1&t=35879&start=200&hilit=black+cat
viewtopic.php?t=36423
https://highwaysengland.co.uk/projects/ ... xpressway/

A12 widening
https://highwaysengland.co.uk/projects/ ... ng-scheme/
viewtopic.php?t=36275

[jackal]

Those schemes are indeed well advanced. The A66 has also had a consultation with route options etc.

By contrast we've heard almost nothing about progress on the A46 Newark bypass and M60 Simister Island, and HE don't even have scheme pages for them (albeit the latter may now be treated as part of the Manchester NW Quadrant project). So it is welcome news that they are considered early RIS2 schemes.

[poshbakerloo]

I have a feeling that the 'anti roads' sentiment that has been around for the last 15 years or so will come to an end as people get more and more fed up with congestion and realise that our generally suburban housing is not suitable for public transport. People that I know have started to complain increasingly that roads are not being expanded and they are just 'normal' people not road buffs like us lol.

[KeithW]

I have a feeling that the 'anti roads' sentiment that has been around for the last 15 years or so will come to an end as people get more and more fed up with congestion and realise that our generally suburban housing is not suitable for public transport. People that I know have started to complain increasingly that roads are not being expanded and they are just 'normal' people not road buffs like us lol.

The reality is that we have seen more progress on road building in the last few years than for some time previously however there will always be those who oppose it in principle and the other factor is simple nimbyism, As for suburbs I would like to point out that suburban living became possible because of public transport not despite it. Indeed in London the suburbs followed the railway, tube, tram and bus lines. One of the reasons for London Transport taking control of public transport in the 1930's was to halt its uncontrolled expansion. Many of the termini of the tube lines are simply the point at which they reached before that occurred. Typical examples are Stanmore on the Jubilee Line, Edgware on the Northern line and Cassiobury Park on the Metropolitan Line in Watford. This also happened the industrial cities of the north. I grew up in suburbs of Middlesbrough such as Linthorpe and Marton in the 1950's when car ownership was quite rare. We lived on this street when only 4 residents had a car. What is now a drive was part of our garden.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@54.55876 ... authuser=0

If you look at an old map of 19th and early 20th century Middlesbrough you find the typical infrastructure of a northern industrial town before affordable public transport was available. Streets of terraced houses clustered around industrial areas and often owned by the industrialist. This was needed because you typically walked to work and often the owner employed a knocker up to wake people up to go to work. When Industries worked 24 hours a day there would be a board in the window or on the wall showing what time the knocker up should tap on the window. Sometines the end house in a row was allocated to a foreman who was responsible for getting his crew to work.

The Trolley and motor bus system was actually setup and initially operated by the company that became Dorman Long as they expanded out of the old town centre to get people to work on the new sites in Grangetown and South Bank

What the car allowed was living beyond the reach of public transport in North Yorkshire and Durham villages such as Stokesley, Great Ayton and Ingleby Barwick

The main thing that has changed is the nature of employment. When I left school in 1968 the expectation was that you would get a job with an employer and stay their for life. On Teesside that meant working for Dorman Long in the steel industry, ICI which employed over 30,000 people or the shipyards. Big employers such as ICI had their own bus routes picking people up and dropping them at different locations on the Billingham, Wilton and North Tees sites

Steel is gone, the shipyards are gone, ICI was bought up and the individual plants that survived employ far fewer people. The old notion of buying a house near where you work no longer applies. I have had far more jobs than houses and in many cases have had major changes in my commute which I would not have been able to do without my own transport.

Middlesbrough 'commuting' in 1898 - you walked out of the company owned house across the railway lines to the iron works at Newport.

[jackal]

The chancellor confirmed £29bn of road funding for 2020-25, including £25.3bn for RIS2 and £3.5bn for non-trunk roads (major road network and large local majors projects). Though announced by his predecessor it's good to see this confirmation.

There were more specific announcements about 18 non-trunk schemes:

Schemes given funding to proceed to construction:

£31 million for the Preston western distributor scheme: a new dual carriageway link between the M55 and the A583 is designed to improve travel between the enterprise zone at Warton and the Springfields nuclear facility at Salwick, as well as reduce congestion in Preston and directly lead to the creation of 3,575 houses and the creation of over 500 jobs. Through the Lancashire County Council funded link road, a further 1,745 houses will also be built.

£25.5 million for the Stubbington bypass: a new 3.5km single carriageway road will improve the environment in the village with the removal of traffic as well as improve access to development sites in Gosport.

£22.5 million for the White Hart junction: improving the intersection between the A419 and A420 to the east of Swindon which will not only benefit existing users of the junction but also help unlock development of the New Eastern Villages site which includes over 8,650 dwellings and 40 ha of employment land. By itself, the White Hart junction scheme will unlock the development of 799 dwellings.

£22.9 million for the Wichelstowe southern access scheme: construction of an access road to the Wichelstowe development site under the M4 motorway which will unlock an additional 2,500 residential units on top of the currently permitted 2000 units.

Schemes at strategic outline business case stage which have been awarded development funding:

Tyne Bridge and Central motorway renewal
A38 Bromsgrove route enhancement programme
A511 growth corridor (Leicestershire)
A38 – (Bristol Airport access improvement)
A38 Manadon interchange (Plymouth)
A374/A386/A3064 Plymouth MRN phase 1
A140 Long Stratton bypass

Schemes given approval to proceed to the next stage:

A1079 improvement – East Riding of Yorkshire
Isham bypass, Northamptonshire
A28 Birchington, Acol and Westgate-on-Sea relief road
Southampton West Quay road realignment
A146 Barnby bends
Lombard roundabout (Croydon)
A13 Lodge Lane (Dagenham)

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/18-n ... completion

[Scratchwood]

A13 Lodge Lane (Dagenham)

I'm assuming this actually means the Lodge Avenue flyover!

It'll be interesting what they plan to do here

[Vierwielen]

This statement reminds me of the deputy prime minister's announcement a few years ago that he would see to it that you could drive two jags abreast all the way from London to Taunton via the A303. I forget his name, but they are still fighting about how best to get past Stonehenge.

[danfw194]

There were more specific announcements about 18 non-trunk schemes:

Schemes given funding to proceed to construction:

Schemes at strategic outline business case stage which have been awarded development funding:
A511 growth corridor (Leicestershire)

Interested to see what plans are cooked up for this ^. The A511 is one of my most hated primary roads. Slow, stop-start, clogged, thoroughly uninteresting. Growth corridor suggests more housing, which will make this road an even worse prospect.

[A303Chris]

So does this

£31 million for the Preston western distributor scheme: a new dual carriageway link between the M55 and the A583 is designed to improve travel between the enterprise zone at Warton and the Springfields nuclear facility at Salwick, as well as reduce congestion in Preston and directly lead to the creation of 3,575 houses and the creation of over 500 jobs. Through the Lancashire County Council funded link road, a further 1,745 houses will also be built.

Mean the M55 is going to finally get it's junction 2

[owen b]

There were more specific announcements about 18 non-trunk schemes:

Schemes given funding to proceed to construction:

Schemes at strategic outline business case stage which have been awarded development funding:
A511 growth corridor (Leicestershire)

Interested to see what plans are cooked up for this ^. The A511 is one of my most hated primary roads. Slow, stop-start, clogged, thoroughly uninteresting. Growth corridor suggests more housing, which will make this road an even worse prospect.

Dreadful road. I once used it to get from Luton to Burton, puzzled that the sat nav wanted to send me all the way round the M1 / A50 / A38. I regretted my choice.

[fras]

£31 million for the Preston western distributor scheme

It sounds a lot but really it is a "p*sspot" of a scheme. If you look on the map what is really needed is the extension of the M65 west and north to take it round the south and west of Preston up to the M55 and make a proper west-side crossing of the River Ribble. At the moment, the M6 passing around Preston is overloaded with local traffic. because the alternatives are virtually non-existent.