Recommendation 9

Throughout RIS 1 and 2, there has been a consistent theme of overly ambitious portfolio planning, and National Highways has overspent and underdelivered. Despite delays in RIS 1, an even more ambitious portfolio was chosen for RIS 2. Schemes have been consistently pushed back into the following RIS portfolio, and some projects initially planned for RIS 3 (2025–30) have already been pushed back to RIS 4. Rather than the efficiency and certainty which road periods were meant to introduce, this has led to confusion and uncertainty. While current inflationary costs were unexpected, changes to the smart motorways programme and legal challenges to projects on environmental grounds could have been better anticipated given longstanding criticisms.