By Highways England invested £27.4bn in the strategic road network expansions, including mega-projects over England: the Lower Thames Crossing, maintaining, and improving The A303 highway (Amesbury to Berwick Down), The Stonehenge tunnel and construction of a road and tunnel from Essex to Kent.
The SRN (the motorways and major A roads in England’s regions) is the primary focal point of this investment, approximately £14 billion.
An £11 billion budget will be allocated to maintaining and enhancing major transportation infrastructures mostly constructed in the 1960s and the 70s.
Highways England Chief Executive Jim O’Sullivan said:
“Our network is a vital part of everyone’s life. It has served the country well during the pandemic, keeping supermarket shelves stocked and enabling key workers to get where they need to be.”
“Over the next five years we will increase capacity where it is most needed and continue to upgrade more of the network, which has suffered from decades of under-investment.”
“We now have a strong track record of delivering new schemes and operating the network for the benefit of our customers and the communities we serve. The plan we’re launching today will protect and create jobs to aid the nation’s recovery, and make journeys faster and more reliable for freight and road users.”
Furthermore, the company hopes to compensate for job losses caused by nationwide lockdown by backing 64,000 jobs in the construction industry. Accordingly, The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak proposed a scheme “A Plan for Jobs” to outline measures and strategies to accelerate economic recovery. For a comprehensive overview of the document, please check
