Grayling: First schemes announced for the new Major Road Network

The first five Major Road Network schemes have been announced:

•          A new section of the York Outer Ring Road

•          Modernising Gallows Corner in East London

•          The farmyard bottleneck on the Grizebeck Bypass near Barrow in Furness

•          The A614 near Ollerton in Nottinghamshire

•          New slip roads in Thurrock

The Transport Secretary has today (Monday 1^st October) revealed the first five schemes that will benefit from the new Major Road Network (MRN) fund. Development work will start immediately.

The Major Road Network will consist of the ‘middle tier’ of the busiest and most economically important local ‘A’ roads in England, many of which were de-trunked under Labour. They will be supported by £100 million of funding for vital upgrades, because it’s not just motorways and big A roads that need big investment.

More than 5,500 miles of important ‘A’ roads across England could benefit from the new fund, which is designed to improve connections between towns and cities and support regional economic growth.

Local authorities with roads included in the MRN will be able to apply for funding to help tackle bottlenecks and traffic jams on their busiest A roads. 

Work will start immediately with the local authorities for the first five schemes; full details of their schemes will be available in the spring.

The money for the fund will come from Vehicle Excise Duty (VED), and could be used for things like new bypasses, road widening or new link roads to better connect local authority roads with motorways.

Together with our £15 billion Road Investment Strategy, the Major Road Network is the next step in the biggest roads investment since the 1970s. Labour under-invested in many of these key routes for years, allowing the towns around them to be left behind.

A full map of the MRN will be announced in due course, along with further schemes to start in coming years.

Construction of the first improvements on the new Major Road Network are expected to start in 2020-21.

Chris Grayling, Transport Secretary, said:

"Under Labour these major local roads were underfunded and not properly maintained. We are spending record amounts on improving our roads and we want more of our busiest roads to benefit from guaranteed investment.

These first five schemes will unlock no end of benefits for communities by improving motorists' journeys, taking traffic away from built up areas, as well as enabling new housing to be built and creating more jobs."