Blog ARCHIVE
King’s Speech Analysis
Labour has hit the ground running since the election in July. Forty Bills were announced in the first Kings Speech of this Parliament, setting a challenging timetable. It will be interesting to see whether the new Government can keep up this pace and deliver. In terms of surface transport, there...
Lower Thames Crossing opposed by local parliamentary candidates
New Civil Engineer: Candidates running for the South Basildon and East Thurrock constituency, which includes the site of the northern part of the planned Lower Thames Crossing, have expressed opposition to the road scheme. The £9bn Lower Thames Crossing scheme includes 23km of new roads and the country’s largest road...
Bridge infill scandals
When British Rail was broken up for privatisation, its assets were dispersed amongst various players in the rail industry or flogged off, often with little thought to their wider value or importance. For some bizarre reason National Highways, a company solely focussed on maintaining and developing the strategic roads network,...
Healthy travel is good for wildlife
This blog is part of our healthy travel choices series. Previously, we looked at road safety and giving children more freedom. Here, we are focusing on how healthy travel helps wildlife. This is very timely given the Restore Nature Now march on 22 June in London and elsewhere around the...
Comparing Party Manifestos on Transport
In this blog, we try to look under the skin of each party’s manifesto to work out what they are really saying while comparing them where we can to the other parties. While there are some expected differences such as on road building, there is a surprising amount of commonality...
Plan for Drivers revelations
From active travel to backing drivers With Conservatives announcing a “Backing Drivers Bill”, it’s time to shed light on how ministers went from strong support of healthy travel to hindering it in a matter of months. While excerpts of these ministerial briefings have been quoted in the media, they have...
Campaign group urges Labour to shelve ‘white elephant’ road schemes
Transport Xtra: The future of roads policy in England has been called into question after the pausing of the flagship Lower Thames Crossing (LTC) project and the postponement of the third road investment strategy (RIS3) draft ahead of the General Election on 4 July. The Government was set to decide...
Hearing date announced for A66 legal challenge at London’s High Court
News and Star / The Cumberland News: A HEARING date has been announced following a legal challenge against £1.5 billion plans to turn parts of the A66 into a dual carriageway. Transport Action Network (TAN) launched the challenge in May as they believe that the Secretary of State's decision to...
Project showing cost benefits of active travel published after five-year delay
Transport Xtra: A modelling project that calculated how much funding was required to meet national active travel targets in England has finally been published by DfT five years after it was produced. This followed a legal challenge by Transport Action Network (TAN).
Transport NGOs call for London / Dublin Sail & Rail service to be’ restored to its former glory’
Bunkerspot: Five transport and climate action NGOs – Opportunity Green, Transport & Environment (T&E) UK, Campaign for Better Transport, Aviation Environment Federation and Transport Action Network – are calling on the train and ferry companies to restore the Sail & Rail service from London to Dublin to its ‘former glory’....
Election puts back RIS 3 and Lower Thames Crossing decisions
Highways Magazine: Ministers have shelved the publication of the draft Road Investment Strategy 2025-30 (RIS 3) and postponed the planning decision for the £10bn Lower Thames Crossing (LTC), following last week’s announcement of a general election in July. Highways understands that the draft RIS was due to have been published...
Cancelling white elephant road scheme would release billions
Cancelling white elephant road scheme would release billions Transport Secretary Mark Harper announced on Friday [1] that he was extending the deadline to make a decision on the Lower Thames Crossing to 4 October. This was to enable a new Government to have the time to fully consider the application....
Road Investment Strategy must prioritise maintenance, not new roads
Road Investment Strategy must prioritise maintenance, not new roads The Department for Transport’s (DfT) is expected to publish this week its draft third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3), setting out priorities and an outline budget for National Highways for 2025-2030. Transport Action Network (TAN) has called for the draft RIS3 to...
Rishi’s Road to Ruin
This Conservative Government seems determined to leave the country far worse than it found it and to tie the hands of the next Government as much as it can. This year we will, more than likely, have a general election and have our say at the ballot box. In the...
Legal challenge against road dualling project
BBC: A campaign group has brought a legal challenge against a decision to dual a key road in northern England. Transport Action Network (TAN) opposes a decision by the secretary of state for transport to approve the £1.5bn A66 Northern Trans-Pennine scheme. TAN believes the upgrade to 18 miles of...
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