Treasury promises £28bn of road investment

The Treasury has announced it will spend £28bn on improvements to the UK’s roads over six years from 2014.

Outlining the government’s capital spending plans today, treasury secretary Danny Alexander said the plan was the “biggest programme of investment in our roads in 40 years”.

He committed to support the Highways Agency’s complete pipeline of national projects over the course of the next parliament.

Alexander also said he would “take action to fix the backlog of maintenance, which has left road surfaces in communities up and down the country crumbling” with £10bn of investment for maintenance between 2015 and 2021.

He said that £4bn of this would be invested in the Highways Agency’s national road network and the remaining £6bn would be distributed to local authorities to spend on improving local roads.

To deliver the improvement in roads the Treasury said it would turn the Highways Agency into a “publically-owned corporation”. It said this would end the cycle of stop-start investment in roads and deliver efficiencies worth £600m by 2020-21.

Institution of Civil Engineers director general Nick Baveystock said: “The government’s commitment to provide our strategic roads network with the long-term funding certainty it needs is excellent news and should signal the end of the ‘stop and start’ funding which has hindered effective maintenance and management of this vital asset for too long.

“The £10bn investment for road repairs, with £6bn allocated for local roads, is also a positive step and will go some way to clearing the £10.5bn local roads backlog.

“These funds however, must be complemented by a focused, joint central and local government programme for the work.

“Given the significant pressure on local authority budgets, this will ensure the funds are protected, spent in a cost efficient way and do ultimately result in improved road conditions for the UK.”