Transport Secretary Grant Shapps is today (14/05/2020) announcing additional funding to repair potholes in England. This funding had been alluded to in Saturday's announcement by Grant Shapps on a range of measures intended to aid a 'green restart' from the COVID-19 lockdown. With restricted access to public transport and low oil prices the government is trying to avoid a resurgence in private car use, and the associated air pollution and carbon emissions, by encouraging active travel and getting the road infrastructure in shape to support this. 

Today's announcement included a £1.7 billion Transport Infrastructure Investment Fund 'to improve roads, repair bridges and fill in millions of potholes'. Road safety, smaller improvements to upgrade local networks, installation of priority bus lanes and measures to lock in improvements to air quality will also be targeted by this fund. The £1.7 billion is not new funding but a re-allocation as was clear at the government's daily briefing today. 

For more information on the funding announcements please see here.

Alongside the funding announcement the Roads funding information pack was released which sets out the capital funding allocation for all English highway authorities for the year ending 31 March 2021. The funding includes the additional £500 million as announced as part of the £2.5 billion 'pothole fund' announced at the Budget earlier in 2020. 

For more information on the Roads funding information pack please see here.

CIHT published Improving Local Highways - The Route to a Better Future earlier in the year. The report addresses not only the need for increased funding, both capital and revenue, for local highways, but also long-term certainty of funding and the need for an improved understanding of asset condition and how local highways contribute to wider goals of local communities. CIHT called for a four-point strategy for the Local Highway Network (LHN): 

Recommendation 1: Create a new focus for the LHN

1. Establish an improved system of monitoring that (a) gives clarity on how the LHN is performing, and (b) includes comparisons of efficiency, effectiveness, and innovation in delivery
2. Encourage greater collaboration through providing an appropriate incentive funding regime
3. Define how local highways meet the economic and social requirements of local areas: roads for places, roads for distribution, roads for access (both rural and suburban), and roads for sustainable and active transport
4. Show how the highway network will support the delivery of a carbon-neutral system, create sustainable, green, resilient, and accessible places, make transport healthier, and help the economy grow
5. Define what people can expect from the LHN, underpinned by an outcome-based service specification and guidance for local authorities and other practitioners
6. Review regulations and legislation relevant to the LHN

Recommendation 2: Commit to establishing an inflation-linked local highways fund

• Establish a 10-year additional funding settlement (should be additional to the current annual capital and revenue funding that local authorities receive for highway maintenance) of £15 billion TOTEX to address the maintenance backlog
• Agree a 10-year local highways fund - leading to improved efficiencies and effectiveness in the management and maintenance of the LHN, including incentivisation to deliver wider outcomes for people and society (would allow maintenance to facilitate active travel, supporting the decarbonisation agenda whilst improving peoples’ health)
• Allocate an initial £7.5 billion from the fund for the first five years, distributed to local authorities on a yearly increasing basis as a new national asset conditions dataset is introduced
• Allocate a further £7.5 billion from the fund for the second five-year period, with distribution taking account of local authority performance, asset conditions, road function and increasing length.

Recommendation 3: Create a better understanding of the asset through improved data

1. Create an up-to-date database of national condition information for all key highway assets
2. Update techniques for collecting data using the latest technology
3. Develop a standard measure to calculate the required funding based on common standards of serviceability from a customer perspective

Recommendation 4: Establish new sources of funding to support the local highways fund

1. Improve the efficiency of how funding is allocated to local highway authorities by reducing the number of complicated funding mechanisms and bidding processes
2. Government should identify and develop alternative and additional sources of revenue to finance the future funding of local highways, including  moves to where utilities pay the real cost of reinstatement. CIHT sees opportunities for road pricing to address congestion,  reduce carbon and provide a potential funding source