The Department for Transport (DfT) and Highways England need to rethink the delivery of their Road Investment Strategy, according to the National Audit Office (NAO).

In a new report, the NAO said decisive action needs to be taken over the Strategy before the updated plan is published this summer.

The Strategy was planned in 17 months in order to publish it before the May 2015 General Election. As a result, projects were selected without knowing whether they would be the best value and 54 of the 112 projects are currently scheduled to start in 2019/20, which could cause significant disruption to motorists.

Highways England has so far completed six projects on or ahead of schedule and has started construction on a further 19, with 16 planned to be on or ahead of schedule. However, Highways England forecasts these schemes will be delivered 5% over budget.


In addition, 16 projects have been identified as being 'at risk' due to not producing value for money.

Amyas Morse, Head of the NAO, said: "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."

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."

Highways England and the Department are exploring a number of ways to manage the risks to these 16 projects including revising project design, cancelling projects or delaying projects to enable further assessment of benefits.

Options have also been developed to bring forward the start dates of up to 10 projects and to delay up to 19 to reduce the number of projects due to start in 2019-20.

However, the NAO said while this may mean that some stakeholder expectations are not met, value for money depends on the Department and Highways England proceeding, in this and in future road periods, with a realistic and affordable plan.

(LM)