The head of the highways monitor in England has called on the Government and National Highways to just 'stick to a boring plan and deliver it', after roughly £750m of public money has been lost in recent years due to abandoned schemes.
John Larkinson, CEO of the Office of Rail and Road, said: ‘I honestly don't think we should do bold really. If you go back about six or seven years, we had an incredibly bold enhancement programme. The Government of the day wanted to go through a huge scale enhancement programme, but there were problems with money and planning consents, and it was never going to happen.
‘If you look at National Highways accounts, they had to write off £450m for a lot of that work. So I think we should stick to getting things done. The plan should be to sustain the long-term asset foundation, particularly in the priority areas, like drainage, pavement and major structures. So just stick to a boring plan and deliver it.'
In fact, between the period 2020-2025, National Highways wrote off more than £500m. In 2024-2025, the chancellor cancelled eight road schemes, including the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down project, citing affordability and value for money considerations.
'A total of £461.4 million had been spent on these schemes, with a further £10.5 million expected to be spent in the year 2025-26. Since no asset was created, the costs incurred were written off as a £471.9 million loss,' National Highways' annual accounts report states.
By far the largest single loss was through the A303 Amesbury to Berwick Down Stonehenge Tunnel scheme: a total of £224.7m was written off after the scheme had entered the development phase; the preferred solution was designed and had progressed through the required statutory processes, including planning approval.
Prior to that, on 15 April 2023, the then-prime minister cancelled all future all lane running smart motorway schemes. This triggered a constructive loss in respect of planning and design costs - the £62m write-off was reported as a loss in National Highways 2023-24 accounts, with the approval of HM Treasury.
On top of this, National Highways has also reported that it expects a write-off of approximately £250m in the 2025‑26 financial statements in relation to capital costs incurred through the now-cancelled A12 to A120 widening scheme and the A47 Wansford to Sutton dualling scheme, up to the end of 2024-25.
National Highways chief executive, Nick Harris, has suggested for some time that RIS 3 will see a much greater focus on maintenance than new schemes: 'Of the larger schemes that we're going to be building during [the third road investment strategy] RIS 3, most are already on site or already in development. There will be some new schemes. I think there are about 10 that we will start to develop.'
A National Highways spokesperson said: 'Operating and maintaining 4,500 miles of motorways and major A roads within our funding requires careful financial management and we do everything we can to make sure our projects deliver value for money. Following the Government's decision to cancel several schemes last year, costs were incurred to conclude projects at the most efficient and safe point in the scheme.'
