These roads are highly damaging

During the first two Roads Investment Strategies (RIS1 and RIS2) for the strategic roads network (motorways, many dual carriageways and some single carriageway A-roads), National Highways struggled to build as many new roads as it had hoped. As a result, the budget for RIS2 was cut from £27.4bn to £23.1bn.

In addition, when Labour came to power it cancelled the highly contentious A27 Arundel Bypass, the A5036 Port of Liverpool Access Road, the A303 Stonehenge dualling and several other lesser schemes, citing them as unaffordable.

Unfortunately, since Louise Haigh resigned as Transport Secretary, road building seems to be back on the agenda; the worst example being Labour's approval of the £16bn Lower Thames Crossing.

Despite the more progressive outlook of some sub-national (regional) transport bodies, their transport strategies still contain too much emphasis on new roads.

All of these big road schemes are considered to be Nationally Significant Infrastructure Projects (NSIPs) and go through a special planning process which has been designed to speed up the process of building them. However, not withstanding this Labour seems intent on tearing up environmental protections in the name of speeding up planning further. All of this is for marginal gain and ignores the bigger blockages in the system: National Highways and the government's own decision making processes.

Please get in touch if you need help or advice on how to challenge a new or expanded road being promoted by National Highways. You might also usefully look at Campaign for Better Transport's Roads Campaigner Guide which contains a lot of useful tips and information and its companion guides on:

• The NSIP planning timetable - infographic
• A guide to the NSIP planning process
• Using Freedom of Information legislation

Given the Planning & Infrastructure Bill currently going through Parliament, we may need to update these guides once it has passed into law.