The Government's future of roads minister, Lilian Greenwood, has revealed that the next Road Investment Strategy (2025-2030) for National Highways will not be confirmed until the Spending Review next year.
Under the original timetable, the strategy should have been in place by now to allow National Highways to enter its mobilisation phase and start preparatory works.
The current strategy will expire on 31 March 2025. RIS 3 will cover 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2030 - meaning the new RIS may arrive only weeks before it is due to go live.
If the Spending Review takes place after March, the transport secretary Louise Haigh would have to report to Parliament to explain why the RIS was not in place.
Ms Greenwood said the strategic road network was 'an economic engine [that] needs our attention and demands a long-term plan; this government will provide it, with the third road investment strategy – a long-term settlement providing much needed stability and enabling a new long-term focus for customer satisfaction and better outcomes'.
She added: 'In order to shape that future we need to take time to ensure we have the right programme - making the right decisions for this year and future years and taking the opportunity provided by the Treasury Spending Review, which concludes in the Spring, to allow us to build a road investment strategy that will be better placed to invest and deliver for the long-term.
She concluded that the 'government believes in multi-year strategies for our roads' that give the sector the 'certainty to invest' and deliver the best outcomes for the asset, safety and economic growth.
Under the 2015 Infrastructure Act, which created National Highways (Highways England as was) and the RIS system, it states if a RIS is not 'currently in place' the transport secretary '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'.
Ms Greenwood also confirmed the Government would develop a national road safety strategy 'the first in over a decade' however she did not provide a timeline for its publication.
The national safety plan is also a long-delayed document that was expected to be published under the last government.
In 2022, former roads minister Baroness Vere speaking at Traffex said the Department for Transport's plan was in its final stages. She said she had seen a draft version and asked for some amendments to be made but had been planning to release it by the end of that year.
