Rising costs put the brakes on dozens of roadbuilding projects

Ben Webster, Transport Correspondent

 

Dozens of road schemes announced by the Highways Agency will have to be delayed or cancelled because of escalating costs.

The agency’s existing roadbuilding bill will cost up to £4 billion more than originally thought and it will be able to afford only a fraction of the schemes that it has promised to complete by 2015.

Traffic volumes fell by 3.5 per cent in the first three months of this year because of the recession, but are forecast to rise rapidly when the economic situation improves. The Department for Transport says traffic in England will grow by 17 per cent by 2015 and 32 per cent by 2025.

The Government announced a £6 billion roadbuilding programme in January, but supporting documents reveal that more than half the schemes are optional and could be cancelled when budgets are revised.

Figures obtained from the agency under the Freedom of Information Act show that several new roads have cost more than three times the original estimate. The total cost of the agency’s 56 major schemes could rise by almost 50 per cent from £8.4 billion to £12.3 billion. The A38 Dobwalls bypass in Cornwall, finished in December, cost £52 million against an original estimate of £17 million. Work on upgrading the A2, near Cobham, Kent, was finished in February. It was supposed to cost £35 million but ended up at £130 million.

Cost escalation is even worse for roads still being built. The Hindhead tunnel, designed to relieve congestion on the A3 in Surrey, was expected to cost £107 million but now the agency expects a bill of £372 million. The cost of work on the A1 from Peterborough to Blyth has risen from £31 million to £96 million.

The agency has already been forced to scale back or delay key projects, including plans to widen the M25 and a bypass to relieve the villages of Mottram, Hollingworth and Tintwistle in the Peak District.

The RAC Foundation said that even the roads originally promised would not be enough. They would add 520 lane miles of main roads by 2015 but the foundation said it had calculated that Britain needed 400 extra miles a year up to 2039.

The foundation wants a roads regulator to be appointed to ensure capacity and funding. The Government receives £46 billion a year in motoring taxes but spends less than £9 billion on improving the network.

But the Campaign for Better Transport, which promotes sustainable travel, welcomed the cuts. Richard George, its spokesman, said: “Replacing these expensive and environmentally disastrous new roads with more sustainable alternatives would not only be better value for money but would reduce greenhouse gas emissions in an area of the economy which has been stubbornly dragging its feet.”

He said the agency had underestimated the cost of new roads in order to gain approval for them and overestimated the benefits.

An agency spokeswoman blamed cost overruns on inflation, changes in the scope of projects and “inadequate initial estimating”.