Bigger roads are making things worse

Building new and bigger roads is a very real threat for a number of social and economic issues. Whether for its the strategic roads network (trunk roads) or the local road network bigger roads encourage more traffic increasing air, noise and water pollution while making it harder to tackle climate change. Road building is also very expensive.

The processes for building new roads are quite different depending on whether your road is a Nationally Significant Infrastructure Project (NSIP) (normally a trunk road promoted by National Highways) or a local road promoted by your local authority or a developer.

An NSIP goes through a process with a fixed timetable, a six month Examination in Public which is mostly a written process. In contrast, for a local road it's often the local authority that is applying for planning permission from itself. The road will be treated like any other planning application, going to committee for decision, unless it is called in for a public inquiry.

Regardless of which road type you are dealing with, but are likely to have used transport modelling to justify their existence. We've got this layman's guide to transport modelling to help you understand a bit more about this technical issue.

Please get in touch if you need help and if you want advice on specific type of new road, click on one of the two links below: