Government delivered on a previous promise to set up a National Roads Fund, paid for by English vehicle excise duty, which it was revealed will see investment of £28.8Bn between 2020 and 2025.

The majority (£25.3Bn) will pay for planned upgrades to the country’s strategic network of motorways and A roads that fall under Highways England’s second Road Investment Strategy (RIS2). The strategy is expected to see progress on schemes including the Lower Thames Crossing, the Oxford to Cambridge Expressway and a Trans Pennine road tunnel.

The remaining £3.5Bn from the National Roads Fund will go towards improvements to the new Major Road Network as well as larger local road projects.

In addition, local authorities will receive £420M to fix potholes on their roads and renew bridges and tunnels, while a further £150M was announced to improve local traffic hotspots such as roundabouts.

Responding to the Budget, sector commentators broadly welcomed the commitment made to strategic and major roads under the National Roads Fund but more, it was felt, could be done for local maintenance.

CIHT President Matthew Lugg commented: “We welcome the acknowledgement by the Chancellor that investing in infrastructure is key to boosting the UK’s economy. CIHT has long called for more certainty of funding and the announcement around RIS2 helps towards providing the consistency that our industry needs.

“We are pleased to see the acknowledgement of a need to invest in our local road network with the additional £420M made available for local highway authorities. CIHT believes much more needs to be done in this area and we should be moving to using preventative measures including whole life asset management.'

“We will be releasing the CIHT Lugg Review early next year that will be looking at future ways of funding and maintaining our local road network.” To read CIHT’s full response to the Budget click here.

Motoring group the RAC’s chief engineer David Bizley said: “While the focus of this cash injection is strategic and major roads, it is also positive that other local roads will benefit to some extent. But what is also needed going forward is a similar long term strategy and funding for the maintenance and improvement of all local roads.”

Road safety group IAM RoadSmart’s director of policy and research Neil Grieg agreed, saying: “Extra money is always welcome but when it arrives unpredictably for one year at a time it does little to help the long term planning needed to really attack the pothole problems drivers and riders see and feel every day.”

Asphalt Industry Alliance chairman Rick Green added that the announcement of £420M would go “some way” towards tackling the annual shortfall in highway maintenance budgets, but “it is not enough to stop the on going decline of the local road network caused as a result of years of underfunding”.

Meanwhile the Civil Engineering Contractors Association’s director of external affairs Marie-Claude Hemming welcomed the Chancellor’s focus on infrastructure investment. “In his last Budget before the UK leaves the European Union, the Chancellor has sensibly sought to bolster the economy by targeted investment in transport infrastructure and support for apprenticeships,” she said.

Consultant Ramboll’s UK transport market director Alan Pauling welcomed the hypothecation of vehicle excise revenue for improvements to strategic highways and the Major Road Network. But he added: “If the much needed benefit is to be felt then it is crucial that investment of this money is not delayed by local authority and regional wrangling about where it is to be spent.”

(Photograph: Highways England)