Infrastructure Projects Authority (IPA) chief executive Nick Smallwood has said that a system of systems approach and overall societal benefits should be used when considering the need for future road projects to ensure they contribute towards net zero targets.
Smallwood made the comments in response to environmental transport campaigners who claimed that including over £13bn of roads schemes on the IPA’s construction pipeline undermines the government’s Build Back Better agenda.
The pipeline, which was published on Monday, was topped in terms of value by four roads contracts. The two biggest contract opportunities are both worth £4bn. They are for the Lower Thames Crossing tunnels and approaches contract, and a National Highways "scheme delivery framework".
According to Smallwood, we will always have roads. “I think that they are not inconsistent with net zero,” he added. “By 2030 we are moving to a ban on the sale of new fossil fuelled vehicles and we will very quickly move to electric vehicles. If you read the Transforming Infrastructure Pipeline, you will see that rather than just building a road to improve journey times, it needs to have some logical link to our communities and, actually, in the bigger scheme of things, you can offset carbon by having the right transport solutions.
“You have to balance the environmental opportunities and economic opportunities with transport opportunities. It’s not that we don’t want roads and we don’t want rail, you have to look at the integrated system. We are trying to have that system of systems thinking brought to the table now rather than just people advocating for or against a particular road scheme.
“We need to understand the societal benefits, what are the trade-offs and what value does it bring to which community.”
Smallwood pointed to the Lower Thames Crossing as a key example. “A lot of people have been objecting to the project [at a local level],” he said. “But if you count up the number of vehicles that are stationary on the Dartford Crossing every day and pumping out fumes, versus keeping traffic moving on the Lower Thames Crossing and recognise that the project plays a hugely important part in levelling up not just deprived societies in the southeast of England and is also the conduit from Europe to the north of England. It is a complex myriad of matters you have to take into consideration on larger national schemes.”
Smallwood described the construction pipeline as being a catalyst to the government’s levelling up agenda. “Levelling up is a very complex issue,” he explained. “We have tried to highlight that we are focusing on people and places and using data to understand what local communities need and how you tie into that is a hugely important factor. You can start from a very simplistic view of where is the money invested but the reality is not that, it is where do the jobs get created, what is the overarching economic benefit and are you helping to improve the health and welfare of a particular community? Infrastructure is part of the solution, but it is not the whole solution. Levelling up is about bringing societal benefits in all areas and the pipeline is a great start but it is not the end of the journey.”
The allocation of funding to projects that have not yet gained planning approval, or have had consent overturned by the High Court in the case of the Stonehenge Tunnel, was also criticised by campaigners. Smallwood said that he couldn’t comment on what would happen to the funding allocated on the pipeline to the Stonehenge Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing if either is unsuccessful in gaining planning approval. “I can’t speak for what the Chancellor’s capital pot is as we go into the Spending Review but I am sure he has his priorities about where he will move money about,” said Smallwood. “The pot will be finite so I am sure that there will be trade-offs.”
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