The delayed third Road Investment Strategy (RIS 3) will run for a full five years from 2026 to 2031, the Department for Transport (DfT) has confirmed.
The Department’s official ‘RIS 3’ bulletin states that, as announced in the October Budget, RIS 3 will follow an Interim Settlement for National Highways from April 2025 to March 2026 ‘to allow time for Ministers to pause and consider SRN priorities and capital spend’.
It adds: ‘The third RIS will cover the period 2026 – 2031.’
Although it was already known that RIS 3 would start a year late, it does not appear to have been explicitly stated before whether it would run for four or five years.
The one-year settlement and delay to the start of RIS 3 means that National Highways will not be operating under a formal written strategy for the first time since its creation (as Highways England) in 2015.
The concept of a RIS is established under the Infrastructure Act 2015, which states that the secretary of state may at any time set a Road Investment Strategy or vary a strategy which has already been set.
It does not appear to require that there is always a RIS in place but requires that if a strategic highways company (i.e. National Highways) does not currently have one in place, the secretary of state must lay before Parliament a report explaining why a Strategy has not been set, and set a Road Investment Strategy as soon as may be 'reasonably practicable'.
Since 2015, the Government has planned investment in England’s strategic road network (SRN) in multi-year Road Periods with the RIS setting out the medium to long-term vision for the network.
The DfT RIS bulletin states: 'National Highways will continue to deliver committed enhancement schemes and maintain momentum on renewals and road pavement replacement work, as well as continuing its day-to-day operation of the network.'
