A top National Highways official has expressed frustration over legal challenges to planning approvals for major road enhancements, which he said had caused delays and cost increases running into hundreds of millions of pounds.
Speaking at Traffex, the government-owned company’s chief customer and strategy officer, Elliot Shaw, highlighted the issue as one the main challenges it has faced during the current road investment strategy (RIS 2) period.
He told attendees that since the development consent order (DCO) process was created about a decade ago, National Highways has had more DCOs approved than any other organisation across the country.
However, he added: 'In the last few years in RIS 2 we’ve seen many more of those challenged and delayed and last year we had seven DCOs approved, but five of those have been subject to legal challenge.’
Mr Shaw cited the recent decision to allow a new legal appeal against the company’s plans for a £2bn tunnel for the A303 at Stonehenge, causing further delays.
He said: ‘In the High Court hearing, the High Court judge said the objector's case was unarguable, but the Appeal Court this week has decided to hear their case.
‘I can’t deny, it’s not a bit frustrating, but we’re keen to continue to work that through and drive things forward. But it’s important because those delays to DCOs do mean delays to schemes and they also mean cost increases.
‘I think we’ve probably seen cost increases of hundreds of millions of pounds due to those delays to a lot of those schemes.’
Looking forward to the next RIS, from 2025 to 2030, Mr Shaw said: ‘It’s fair to say that we have a number of strengths to build on, but there are challenges as we look forward. It clearly is going to be a fiscally constrained environment. The wider government environment is going to be fiscally constrained.
‘We’ve got an ageing network – a network that was built largely in the 1950s, the 60s and the 70s. So it’s going to take a little bit more looking after, like all of us do when we get a bit older.’
Mr Shaw was speaking just hours before the prime minister announced that the general election would take place in July, which caused the Government to delay the publication of the new RIS and postpone the DCO decision on its flagship Lower Thames Crossing scheme.
