Skip to main content

UK reveals major road investment plans

The UK has major plans to invest in road infrastructure. In all some 1,440 lane km of road capacity will be added to the strategic highway network of England and Wales by 2021. This boost comes from an investment of €30.565 billion (£24 billion), the biggest since the 1970s – which will see annual funding for improvements to motorways and major A roads triple over the next 6 years.
September 5, 2014 Read time: 1 min

The UK has major plans to invest in road infrastructure. In all some 1,440 lane km of road capacity will be added to the strategic highway network of England and Wales by 2021. This boost comes from an investment of €30.565 billion (£24 billion), the biggest since the 1970s – which will see annual funding for improvements to motorways and major A roads triple over the next 6 years. Investment includes more than €11.345 billion (£9 billion) on maintenance, €7.564 billion (£6 billion) of which will be spent on resurfacing 5,000km of the strategic road network. This forms part of a long-term economic plan intended to deliver around 35% more capacity on UK roads than was delivered in the nine years up to 2010. The UK Government will triple investment in major roads to over €3.782 billion (£3 billion)/year up to 2021.

Related Content

  • Better maintenance is on the Horizon for UK’s Warrington Council
    May 15, 2018
    Good, readable analysis of road surfaces to ensure sufficient maintenance funding is an essential part of asset management. The technical side of ensuring a good road surface is integral to maintaining safe, superior highway infrastructure. But securing sufficient government funding for such work – repairs and new-build – based on the current road surface is also essential. To evaluate road conditions and structure for such a business case, one UK local council turned to software provider Yotta.
  • Highway 407 Revisited – smart tollroad extension
    June 7, 2016
    In the late 1990s, World Highways published a supplement on construction of Canada’s Highway 407, the world’s first all-electronic toll road. But how successful has it been? David Arminas reports from Toronto The head office for 407 ETR Concession Company is a low-rise building next to exit 59, just north of Toronto, Canada’s economic powerhouse. The building may be non-descript but inside is the advanced technical heart of Highway 407 ETR – Express Toll Route. It houses the latest toll monitoring techno
  • Plans for new Uruguay road projects
    December 19, 2014
    Uruguay requires more investment in roads, according to a report conducted by the economic studies centre for the construction industry, Centro de Estudios Economicos de la Industria de la Construccion (Ceeic). The report highlights a reported gap in road infrastructure investments in Uruguay in the period between 2000 and 2013. The country invested some 4.5% of GDP in roads, equivalent to around US$2.52 billion but adds that the government should invest around 7% of the GDP or almost $4 billion to repair a
  • Consultancy calls for scrutiny of UK’s transport forecasts
    November 8, 2013
    In the UK a leading consultancy, WSP, is calling for close scrutiny of Census data and traffic trends. This move forms part of the UK Government’s Transport Select Committee investigation into the country’s strategic road network (SRN). According to WSP more must be done to investigate and take account of new trends in development, demographics and travel patterns when making decisions on future infrastructure provision. It claims that there is evidence in some areas that car journeys have been stagnating o