Transport secretary Grant Shapps has granted a Development Consent Order (DCO) for National Highways to begin work on the much-delayed A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet scheme, which is due to cost nearly £1bn.
The scheme will see the creation of a new 10-mile dual carriageway linking the A1 Black Cat roundabout in Bedfordshire to the A428 Caxton Gibbet roundabout in Cambridgeshire.
Both roundabouts will be upgraded into free-flowing junctions with a new junction added at Cambridge Road, improving access to St Neots and its train station.
National Highways said the project, which is currently priced at £810m to £950m, will help drivers save up to an hour and a half every week at what it called ‘one of the region’s most notorious congestion hotspots’.
Project director Lee Galloway said: ‘This announcement is a major milestone, not only for us, but also for the many local communities who have long campaigned for improvements, as well as our stakeholders who we’ve been working with for several years.'
Dave Hodgson, mayor of Bedford Borough, said: ‘It’s great to see that we have passed another important milestone for the upgraded route.’
The scheme was first announced by the Coalition Government in 2014 and formed part of the first (2015-20) Road Investment Strategy (RIS).
When it was announced in 2018 that the start of the scheme had been put back to 2021-22, Mr Hodgson slammed the delay as ‘costly for businesses and desperately disappointing for motorists’.
In its latest announcement, National Highways said it ‘aims to start construction later this year’.
The Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s Annual Report on Major Projects 2021-22 gave the project an ‘amber’ rating - meaning delivery is feasible but there are significant issues.
Spending data released by the Department for Transport in relation to the report noted that the scheme had underspent by £20m (42%) against budget, noting: ‘The DCO application was submitted later than anticipated to allow the incorporation of lessons learnt from other unsuccessful applications. The DCO examination also started later than expected due to a longer DCO pre-examination period imposed by PINS.’
It added: ‘As a result, the programme was rephased and the spike associated with the commencement of construction, budgeted in 2021/22 will now occur in the following year, subject to the DCO being granted in August 2022.’
In its recent Annual Assessment of National Highways, the Office of Rail and Road disclosed that the scheme was one of two that had their start of works targets deferred and were classified as ‘missed commitments’.
It noted that the government-owned company gave reasons for missing its commitments, but stated: ‘National Highways should have foreseen these issues and mitigated them beforehand.’
The Black Cat roundabout will be upgraded to a triple deck junction
AECOM technical director Phil Wayles said: ‘AECOM’s multidisciplinary teams have worked collaboratively with National Highways and other project partners for over five and a half years and led delivery of the preliminary design and DCO statutory process stages.
‘This significant milestone has been achieved through amazing teamwork to meet the many challenges of the DCO process.’
