£1bn fund for road infrastructure announced in Autumn Statement

Date: 6/12/2012

Chancellor George Osborne announced £1 billion of spending on road infrastructure to take affect by 2015 in the Autumn Statement.

It will be used to upgrade roads, with four major projects earmarked, including turning the rest of the A1 dual carriageway between Leeds and Newcastle into a motorway.

The M25 and A30 in Cornwall will also be upgraded and a new link constructed between the A5 and the M1.

Other plans announced by the Chancellor include a £1 billion loan complete with guarantee for the extension of London's Northern Line.

The Department for Transport is expected to cut annual spending by £139 million by 2015, despite the announcement of increased investment.

Details released by the Treasury broke the funding down into its constituent parts, including £333 million for resurfacing roads to be split between the Highways Agency and local authorities.

A further £270 million will be spent on awkward junctions in order to alleviate bottlenecks, with £170 million specifically for local roads.

Plans which had previously been scrapped to make the A1 between Leeming and Barton into a three-lane motorway have been reinstated at a cost of £314 million.

That and the upgrade of the A1 between Leeds and Newcastle should be complete and in operation by 2017.

The M25/A13 interchange is to have £150 million spent on it after 2015 in order to cope with the increased freight traffic which will be coming from the Thames estuary.

Junction improvements, which had already been given the go ahead for the M3, M6 and M1, will be sped up with the injection of £137 million.

A further £42 million will also be spent on cycle infrastructure, which is seen as vital, as more people are taking to their bikes as petrol prices rise.

Expected details of the route to be taken by the second phase of the High Speed 2 network were not forthcoming however, meaning that such information will now come in the new year.

Posted by Mary Treen

Transport News and Transport Consulting News