Speeding up the delivery of major road schemes

Aim

The preparation process for major road improvements can be lengthy, often up to 10 years before actual building starts. It has been a priority to minimise this by taking between 3-5 years off the time scale for uncontroversial proposals, while still ensuring that our high standards of planning and public consultation are maintained

What it means for motorists

• Speeding up the process for delivering uncontroversial road schemes by 3-5 years
• Public consultation at an earlier stage
• All parties working together to deliver the right roads on the ground more quickly

Main features

• By consulting local people at an earlier stage in the road planning process we can listen and incorporate their views before ideas have become fixed and therefore make local opinion vital to the planning process
• By working on surveys, design work and environmental impact at the same time we can speed up the process, rather than carrying out these important activities in sequence
• Better procurement practices will speed up the time it takes to appoint consultants for design and survey work.
• Using the same company to design and build the scheme will involve all parties from the very start. Appointing this company earlier in the process will cut out the need for a lengthy tendering process once the scheme has got the go ahead

Plans for the future

• These new procedures will be phased in as soon as any of the 40 schemes in the national roads programme reach suitable milestone stages-however many are at an advanced stage of preparation and will not benefit fully.
• New projects which enter the programme from the Regional Planning Guidance process will be prepared under the new process.

For more information please contact the Highways Agency Press Office on 020 7921 4323/4389/4029.