Select committee: Transport Committee
Conclusion 1
Third Report - Rollout and safety of smart motorways
Published 2 Nov 2021
Paragraph 15
Addressed to Department for Transport
Transport Committee The roll-out and safety of smart motorways All items in this report Report on parliament.uk ↗ Inquiry on parliament.uk ↗
Conclusion (the committee's words)
The design of our motorways and strategic roads necessarily entails balancing competing priorities. However, successive Administrations, together with the Department and National Highways’ predecessor, Highways England, underestimated the scale of safety measures needed effectively and reliably to mitigate the risks associated with the permanent removal of the hard shoulder on all-lane running motorways. The Department and Highways England failed to deliver safety improvements to all-lane running motorways in a timely fashion, despite having promised previous Transport Committees that such improvements would be prioritised. Moreover, the communication of this radical change in the design of our motorways has been woeful. Six years after their introduction, many people do not understand what all-lane running motorways are and what to do if they breakdown in a live lane.
From: Transport Committee, Third Report - Rollout and safety of smart motorways (HC 26), paragraph 15, 2 November 2021
Government response
The government responded to the whole report on 12 January 2022 (deadline 10 January 2022).
Summary written by Accountability Index from the government's response. It is not the government's own words.The government states it will be "taking forward all the recommendations", including pausing the rollout of future all lane running smart motorway schemes, while disagreeing with the Committee's view that the March 2020 decision was premature.
- It does "not agree" that the March 2020 decision that all new smart motorways would be ALRs was premature, nor that introducing ALR smart motorways was an unsafe change.
- It agrees to "immediately pause" ALR schemes yet to commence construction until five years of safety data is available, but will complete schemes already in construction, which are "all over 50% complete".
- On retrofitting emergency areas, it "agrees in principle" and commits £390m over the second Road Investment Strategy, for over 150 additional emergency areas by 2025. Wider retrofitting will be "considered" for the third Road Investment Strategy.
- On an ORR health and safety assessment, it commits only to "investigating further" the benefits, with recommendations to ministers "later this year", noting this may need legislation and consultation.