National Highways has struggled to identify measures to tackle unlawful pollution levels on parts of its network, despite telling Parliament that it was already implementing countermeasures.
According to the latest annual assessment by the company’s monitor, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), 43 links on the strategic road network (SRN) breached legally binding limits on Nitrogen Dioxide in 2022-23.
This was an increase of 38.7% on the 31 links reported in the previous two years.
In its statutory annual report to Parliament (above), National Highways stated that, with the Department for Transport having already accepted that 15 links currently have no viable additional mitigation, it was ‘implementing air quality improvement measures for the remaining 28 links’.
However, in its 2022-23 annual assessment (below), the ORR noted that the company had put measures in place on eight of the 28 links and was ‘working to identify appropriate measures for the remaining 20’. The eight measures that were put in place were all speed reductions.
Both documents were published in July of this year.
Asked by Highways to comment on the disparity, National Highways denied that there was one, but stated: ‘For the remaining 20, we’ve been working to investigate whether we can introduce any of the measures available to National Highways to improve air quality’.
The admission that National Highways is investigating whether any measures can be introduced contradicts its previous assertion the interventions are already being 'implemented'.
The statement also implies that some links may have no viable mitigation measures.
National Highways has a KPI requiring it to bring links with illegal levels of NO2 into compliance ‘in the shortest time possible’ and the ORR is responsible for holding the company to account on this.
The ORR noted that National Highways was designing and implementing measures for the remaining 28 links with potential unlawful air quality, had put measures in place on eight and was ‘working to identify appropriate measures for the remaining 20’.
‘We are content with the progress that the company has made to deliver these measures,’ the ORR stated.
In a July 2021 report, National Highways, then known as Highways England, said there were 17 areas breaching air quality limits for which no solution was available, adding that five of these were provisionally forecast to be legally compliant in 2021.
