The Department for Transport (DfT) has buried carbon reduction guidance that it drew up but has never released, Highways can reveal.
Officials confirmed to Highways that the department had worked up the guidance, which focused on embedded carbon, but the Government has refused to release it or confirm what it said.
However, a top DfT official has invited views on whether work on it should be resumed.
At the DfT-sponsored Live Labs 2 Expo 24 last month, a local authority attendee referred to a ‘dearth of knowledge' within councils around issues such as embedded carbon and asked how messages on this could be simplified.
Rupert Furness (pictured at the event), the DfT's deputy director of local highways and active travel road transport group, described this as 'a brilliant question'.
He said: 'I think you are right; a lot of this does get highly technical and complex and difficult. I would be interested in other views from the audience as to what the role of government should be here.
'We had been at some time working on some guidance...which looks into some of these things. That work has been paused for some time but [I’d be] really interested in some views from the wider audience as to whether we should look to give that some fresh momentum.’
Asked by Highways for further information about the guidance, a DfT spokesperson did not deny that it had been drafted but said the department has no plans to introduce it.
Highways again asked for details of the subject and scope of the guidance, but the spokesperson claimed that the department was unable to disclose ‘private discussions’.
As previously reported on Highways, Mr Furness dismissed suggestions that the decarbonisation agenda is taking a back seat, claiming that its profile within the department is ‘definitely as high as it has ever been’.
