The Government’s £4.2bn Housing Infrastructure Fund (HIF), designed to provide infrastructure to support new homes, has been given a red rating by an official government body, meaning that the programme is considered ‘unachievable’.
The central government programme was due to fund 124 infrastructure schemes to ‘unlock’ the construction of up to 300,000 homes.
As Highways has previously reported in print, a large number of HIF projects have run over budget as a result of inflationary pressures, with some receiving extra cash and some scrapped.
Most recently, an £11.9m cash injection for a £90m bypass scheme in North Somerset from the local authority only filled half of a £24m funding gap caused by rising costs.
The planned Banwell Bypass in North Somerset
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA), which monitors the status of major projects on behalf of the Government, has published its Annual Report 2023-23 covering a Government Major Projects Portfolio (GMPP) comprising 244 projects with a total whole life cost of £805bn.
It rated the HIF as unachievable, giving the same rating to the first two sections of the HS2 rail line – Phase 1, currently under construction, and Phase 2a, which would take the line from the West Midlands to Crewe.
The IPA defines a red rating as: 'Successful delivery of the project appears to be unachievable. There are major issues with project definition, schedule, budget, quality and/or benefits delivery, which at this stage do not appear to be manageable or resolvable. The project may need re-scoping and/or its overall viability reassessed.’
National Highways’ three largest current road building schemes – the £9bn Lower Thames Crossing, the £2bn A303 Stonehenge project and the £1.5bn A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme – currently have amber ratings.
This is defined as: ‘Successful delivery appears feasible but significant issues already exist, requiring management attention.’
The HS2 Phase 2b Western Leg, which would take the high speed line to Manchester, also has an amber rating.
