Having already cancelled the £350m A27 Arundel bypass and the £1.7bn A303 Stonehenge tunnel projects since coming to power in July, the Labour government has now found more road building schemes that it considers to be poor value for money.
Collectively, the five projects would have cost more than £1.3bn to build.
Projects ejected from the national roads programmes today are:
- A5036 Princess Way – Port of Liverpool access road (£335m estimated cost)
- A358 Taunton to Southfields (£500m)
- M27 J8 Southampton (£50m)
- A1 Morpeth to Ellingham dualling (£390m)
- A47 Great Yarmouth Vauxhall Roundabout (£50m).
Cancellation of the A47 Great Yarmouth Vauxhall Roundabout is perhaps no great surprise as work had already been paused. Since the completion of Third River Crossing – Herring Bridge – in Great Yarmouth this year, the way that traffic accesses the town and port areas has changed, making the Vauxhall Roundabout less of a pinchpoint.
Approving the development consent order (DCO) for the A1 Morpeth to Ellingham scheme – upgrading 13 miles to dual carriageway – was one of the last actions of former transport secretary Mark Harper before the general election.
While roads have been given a kicking in the 2024 autumn budget, the chancellor has committed to the East West Rail scheme (Oxford-Milton Keynes-Cambridge) and the Trans Pennine Upgrade to improve rail journeys between York, Leeds and Manchester.
Rachel Reeves also confirmed funding for the tunnel from Old Oak Common to Euston to ensure
HS2 trains terminate in central London, although money for the new Euston terminus will still have to come from the private sector.
Some national road schemes have survived, including dualling sections of the A47, where work has begun to improve connectivity between East Anglia and the north, and on the A57, where work will start in the coming weeks to improve journey times between Sheffield and Greater Manchester.
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