PRESS RELEASE

Rishi Sunak’s claims on £1.5bn A66 are wrong

Transport Action Network (TAN) today responded to Rishi Sunak’s lobbying for the £1.5 billion A66 Northern Trans Pennine scheme in his Richmond and Northallerton constituency [1]. The project would dual the remaining sections of single carriageway on this route.

Mr Sunak claimed it would increase safety and “costs businesses millions.” However TAN believes that the economic and safety cases for the A66 scheme have been exaggerated, and that cheaper, safer and faster solutions exist.

The business case shows that the £1.5bn scheme [2] would cost more to build than it would ever generate in economic benefit. According to National Highways’ own figures, for every £1 spent, only 48p would be returned to the economy. When disputed “wider economic benefits” are included in the calculations, the scheme would only deliver 92p for every £1 spent, still making it a poor investment [3].

The safety case for the scheme has been exaggerated too. Although the new sections of the A66 would see a reduction in severe collisions, slight casualties would increase on the route overall. Meanwhile, safety on the existing dual carriageways would worsen (due to the increases in traffic) with an extra 6 fatalities and 40 serious casualties [4].

Mr Sunak also claimed the road had “50 per cent more casualties than the average for a road of this type”, however this is not true. National Highways misleadingly compared the A66 to the entire Strategic Road Network, which includes motorways which are the safest roads. When compared to other mixed roads, overall the A66 appears safer [5]

TAN argues that the scheme is being pursued to increase HGV numbers, not to address safety, to the detriment of local communities and the protected landscapes of the North Pennines. If National Highways was genuinely interested in safety, it would have implemented low cost safety solutions many years ago and would be aiming to reduce HGV numbers.

Rather than addressing safety concerns along the whole route, the current approach to safety is ad hoc and piecemeal. This has resulted in collisions occurring where the short average speed camera sections end. Extending average speed cameras to cover the entire single carriageway sections would reduce speeding and dangerous overtaking. Alongside other small scale changes [6], this would more effectively improve safety, be quicker to implement and at a fraction of the £1.5bn cost of the A66 project.

Chris Todd, TAN’s Director, said:

“National Highways and the previous Conservative government fixated on unaffordable road schemes, exaggerated their benefits and hid their costs, with no plan on how to pay for them. The £1.5bn A66 would cost more to build than any economic benefits it might bring. It is a very costly way to bring about improvements and denies many other areas of much needed safety measures in the process. We hope the Transport Secretary and Chancellor take an objective look at the A66, rather than give way to unevidenced but emotional appeals from the Conservative ex-Prime Minister. This is not a good investment and contradicts Labour’s missions to boost growth and encourage rail freight.”

– ENDS –

Notes to Editors

[1] Rishi Sunak has written to the Transport Secretary, Louise Haigh, ahead of her capital spend review, announced on 30 July. More information here.

[2] The £1.49 billion cost is in National Highways’ A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Funding Statement (paragraph 2.1.1), submitted to the planning examination in June 2022.

[3] The Benefit-Cost Ratio (BCR) for the A66 project is in National Highways’ A66 Combined Modelling and Appraisal Report (Table 6-21), submitted to the planning examination in June 2022.

[4] The casualty figures are included in National Highways’ A66 Northern Trans-Pennine Project, 3.7 Transport Assessment (Rev2) Clean (Table 9-9), submitted to the planning examination in January 2023

[5] More information about the project can be found on our A66 facts page.

[6] Cheaper, small-scale improvements (as well as lowering speeds and more enforcement) could include junction improvements, for example acceleration lanes, better visibility splays, and also underpasses or bridges for local and farm traffic so people didn’t have to cross the carriageways of the main road on local journeys.