Road safety still not a priority for National Highways

With the latest National Highways Report and Accounts and their regulator, the Office of Rail and Road (ORR), Annual Report and Accounts now out, we’re sharing our key headlines from the reports, and it’s not a positive picture for road safety, carbon emissions or taxpayers’ money.

Road Safety

The most startling headline from this year’s report is that National Highways have missed their safety reduction target by a massive 12%, only reaching 38% of their 50% target by the end of 2025. This is despite the Chair of National Highways stating that “Safety is our most important commitment” on page 5 of the National Highways Reports and Accounts.

According to the National Highways Report: ‘Our number one priority is safety. We all have a part to play in making sure that our colleagues, our road workers and our customers get home safe and well.’

And yet National Highways are failing year after year on their road safety targets.

National Highways’ regulator, the ORR, reported in their assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network that National Highways would miss its road safety target for the end of 2026.

Isn’t it about time National Highways were held to account on road safety?

Carbon emissions

National Highways have also failed on their own net zero target (which is minuscule compared to the emissions from the Strategic Road Network) to decrease corporate carbon emissions, 2% off their baseline of 2019-2020, having only managed an 8% decrease since the 2024-2025 report. Of more importance would be a target for National Highways to reduce carbon emissions from road users, by not increasing traffic in the first place through their roadbuilding plans. However, since 2020, in RIS2 and RIS3, DfT has not given National Highways a target to reduce road user emissions, something we have long called for.

Designated Funds

Meanwhile on Designated Funds, which are funds to rectify historic issues with the strategic roads network or to fund various measures beyond what would be expected when building a scheme, the report highlights that only £56m out of that £4.75bn, was actually committed to environmental and road safety projects, less than 2% of the total £27bn RIS3 settlement.

This highlights yet again National Highways failure to prioritise road safety and the environment. But then the ORR Annual report and accounts 2025 to 2026 indicate that only 8% of ORR’s time in the last year has been spent on monitoring National Highways so they are clearly not being observed closely enough.

Noise

On noise, National Highways have apparently developed a new plan. However this supposed plan appears to be invisible: it is not shared in the report and there are no targets available to understand how noise mitigation will be measured.

Roadside Technology

Roadside technology is critical for the safe operations of our roads, it can sometimes prevent collisions, smooths traffic flow and reduces emissions. But yet again, National Highways have failed to deliver on roadside technology, negatively impacting road safety and reduction of carbon emissions.

National Highways state in the report: “This year, we have renewed around 500 technology assets across our all lane running motorways. This includes cameras, signals, message signs and our Motorway Incident Detection and Automated Signalling (MIDAS).”

The interim plan said they were aiming for 270 to 500 CCTV cameras, 168 to 313 signs, and 199 to 396 signals. This totals 637 technology assets at the minimum and 1,209 at the maximum, so with 500 renewed they have not even reached their minimum target.

In the latest ORR Report and Accounts they admit that the “National Highways’ programme to improve availability of safety technology on these roads has taken significantly longer than expected.”

However, National Highways are not being held to account for missing such a significant target, as they have assured ORR “that it can reliably and effectively deliver renewals of roadside technology across the SRN in RP3.”

Wasted taxpayers money

In the report, National Highways CEO notes that ‘I leave knowing the organisation is in great shape with some fantastic achievements recorded in 2025-26. Most significant amongst those is the Lower Thames Crossing, where there is now a well-defined plan for delivery and a way forward for its funding. This is a huge achievement.’

And yet, if you scroll down to page 125, the report clearly states that the Lower Thames Crossing when included in the enhancement portfolio ‘remained in the low value for money category and improved to medium rating when excluded.’

As revealed by TAN, huge amounts are being thrown at the £11bn Lower Thames Crossing with the government committing £3.1 billion of taxpayers’ money and an additional £174 million of public funds earmarked by the Department for Transport this year despite not having a completed business case. Due to pressure from us, the National Audit Office (NAO) has now confirmed it will be investigating the Lower Thames Crossing.

In the latest ORR Report and Accounts, they suggest that delivering value for money is one of their core priorities: “It is even more vital that public funds are invested wisely to ensure the network can sustain and support growth by connecting the nation. We will continue to hold the company to account to support these outcomes for road users, taxpayers and communities.”

So why push ahead with a damaging road scheme that doesn’t represent value for money, has negative environmental impacts and won’t support the country’s economic growth? We hope the ORR will closely monitor National Highways’ activities to ensure they deliver value for money and do not waste funds on poor value but expensive road projects like Lower Thames Crossing and A38 Derby Junctions.

Time to prioritise road safety

The consistent theme across both the National Highways and ORR Annual Reports and Accounts is the lack of importance given to road safety, which should be their number one priority given people’s lives are at stake.

In the ORR Report and Accounts, the watchdog admits they were aware that National Highways were going to miss their road safety target and yet there were no consequences for National Highways for doing so. Admittedly, ORR will be publishing an annual assessment of Safety Performance on the Strategic Road Network.

However, if ORR will be merely sharing missed targets with no action, is there any point to ORR monitoring National Highways at all? It’s time for the ORR to get tougher with National Highways.