Despite National Highways continuing to insist that motorways are safer with no hard shoulders, prime minister Rishi Sunak is making good on a promise he made during the Conservative party leadership battle last summer.
He said over the weekend: “All drivers deserve to have confidence in the roads they use to get around the country. That’s why last year I pledged to stop the building of all new smart motorways, and today I’m making good on that promise.
“Many people across the country rely on driving to get to work, to take their children to school and go about their daily lives and I want them to be able to do so with full confidence that the roads they drive on are safe.”
New smart motorways – including the 11 already paused from the second road investment strategy (2020 to 2025) and the three earmarked for construction during the third road investment strategy (2025 to 2030) – have been removed from government road-building plans.
A £900m programme of retrofit work to make existing smart motorways less dangerous continues, putting in automatic stopped vehicle detection technology and more frequent refuge areas – features that formed part of the original format for smart motorways but were quietly axed along the way to save money. This retrofit programme was ordered following a review of smart motorways by Grant Shapps in 2021 when he was transport secretary.
Deaths of motorists and passengers in broken-down vehicles stranded in live traffic – usually in the lane where all the heaviest vehicles use – have diminished public confidence.
The RAC Report on Motoring 2019 found that 68% of those surveyed said they felt that removing the hard shoulder on motorways compromised safety.
While politicians have realised the game is up, National Highways remains wedded to the concept and has yet to admit any errors. The public is wrong, it says.
“The latest data shows that overall, in terms of serious or fatal injuries, smart motorways are our safest roads,” National Highways continues to insist.
“The scandal has left blood on the hands of those involved,” said Automobile Association (AA) president Edmund King AA. “Officials knew that moving the goalposts from emergency areas every 400 to 500 metres on the pilot M42 to every 2,500 metres when rolled out across the network would cost lives. This was motorway widening on the cheap and at least 40 people have paid the ultimate price. This is the scandal of smart motorways.”
Safety is not the sole motive behind the cancellation of any more smart motorways – perhaps not even the prime motive. The government also wants to save money.
Current transport secretary Mark Harper said: “Today’s announcement means no new smart motorways will be built, recognising the lack of public confidence felt by drivers and the cost pressures due to inflation.”
Scrapping more smart motorways to save money is the logical next step since saving money was the rationale behind them in the first place. Turning hard shoulders into an additional running lane was much cheaper than widening the actual motorway corridor.
While no new stretches of road will be converted into smart motorways, the M56 J6-8 and M6 J21a-26 will be completed given they are already over three-quarters constructed, the government said.
The cancelled schemes
RIS2 (2020 to 2025) paused schemes
New all lane running smart motorways
- M3 junctions 9 to 14
- M40/M42 interchange
- M62 junctions 20 to 25
- M25 junctions 10 to 16
Dynamic hard shoulder to all lane running conversions
- M1 junctions 10 to 13
- M4/M5 interchange (M4 junctions 19 to 20 and M5 junctions 15 to 17)
- M6 junctions 4 to 5
- M6 junctions 5 to 8
- M6 junctions 8 to 10a
- M42 junctions 3a to 7
- M62 junctions 25 to 30
RIS3 (2025 to 2030) pipeline schemes
- M1 North Leicestershire
- M1 junctions 35a to 39 Sheffield to Wakefield
- M6 junctions 19 to 21a Knutsford to Croft
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