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• Future Spending Reviews

The Highways Agency SR10 Major Roads Programme

Following the spending review announcement on October 26th 2010 (see the Department for Transport's supporting document entitled "Investment in Highways Transport Schemes" the Government announced plans to invest £2.3 billion on major roads improvements through to the end of 2014/2015. This included £1.4 billion to start 14 new schemes in the next 4 years.

The Highways Agency has committed to reduce the cost of the 14 capital major schemes by 20% against agreed baseline estimates.  Since the spending review and announcement on the 26 October 2010, the Highways Agency has worked collaboratively with the supply chain to develop a programme that will deliver the 20% efficiencies.

We are now able to provide further detail of when these schemes will start, subject to statutory process, investment decisions and continued partnership with the supply chain to deliver the required efficiencies.

Between now and March 2015, the Highways Agency will (subject to statutory processes where needed):

Start work on three projects in 2011/2012:

• A23 Handcross to Warninglid dualling scheme - scheduled to commence construction in Quarter 3 (October 2011 to December 2011
• M62 J25 to J30 Managed Motorways with hard shoulder running - scheduled to commence construction in Quarter 3 (October 2011 to December 2011)
• M4 J19 to J20 & M5 J15 to J17 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running - scheduled to commence construction in Quarter 4 (January 2012 to March

Start work on three projects in 2012/13¹:

• A11 Fiveways to Thetford dualling scheme
• M6 J5 to J8 (BBox Phase 3) Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• M1 J32 to J35a Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running

Start work on eight schemes in 2013/14 or 2014/15¹:

• M25 J5 to J6/J7 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• M25 J23 to J27 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• M1 J28 to J31 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• A556 Knutsford to Bowdon improvement scheme
• M60 J8 to J12 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• M60 J12 to J15 (Lane Gain) Managed Motorway (no hard shoulder running)
• M62 J18 to J20 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running
• M1 J39 to J42 Managed Motorway with hard shoulder running

Complete construction on seven schemes:

• A1 Dishforth to Leeming
• M1 J19 Catthorpe Viaduct
• A3 Hindhead
• M25 J16 to J23 (DBFO Section 1)
• M25 J27 to J30 (DBFO Section 4)
• M1 J10 to J13
• A46 Newark to Widmerpool

Note: The A421 Bedford to M1 dualling scheme was included in the October announcement, and work was completed in December 2010.

As part of selecting these schemes, all major roads schemes on the strategic road network have been assessed to ensure they provide good value for money, that they represent strategic value and that they are deliverable to budget and timescale. A prioritisation exercise has ensured that the best value schemes will start between now and 2015.

In addition to the 14 projects identified to start in the next 4 years we also committed to continue work on 18 schemes for potential construction in future spending review periods. 14 of these schemes are good schemes that address clear problems. These were delayed for fiscal reasons, and we still intend to start work in the future (subject to statutory processes, affordability and continuing to offer high value for money). In order to ensure that the roads programme retains sufficient flexibility to adapt to changing circumstances or to enable additional investment, we will advance a small number of schemes from this group through statutory processes and design work as 'reserve' schemes, which could be accelerated to start construction before 2015 if circumstances allow. We will select these schemes during the course of 2011.

The remaining 4 schemes will be reviewed. In these cases we want to ensure that the proposed design of a scheme is the best possible, and to see whether there is benefit in dividing the work into smaller packages that can be delivered in sequence.

¹2012 - 2014/15 listing of schemes is by geographical location