Highways England has published its Strategic Road Network initial report and supporting documents.
To inform its response to the initial report, the Department for Transport is seeking views on:
- The proposals made by Highways England in the SRN initial report
- the analytical approach for developing RIS2 and whether it is sufficiently robust
- whether they have heard the full range of views that should be incorporated into the RIS2 programme, including about the shape of the SRN
DfT have published Shaping the future of England’s strategic roads: consultation on Highways England’s Initial Report:
The consultation closes on the 7 February 2018.
Following the A428 consultation earlier this year, our assessment work has shown us that we need to better understand any potential changes from the A1 East of England study, which is due to complete by the end of 2017. To this effect we have decided to postpone the scheme’s preferred route announcement so we can incorporate any conclusions from the study into our analysis and deliver the best long term solution we can.
The A1 study is carrying out further analysis, focussing on the central section (J10 to J14) and is considering local housing plans and the National Infrastructure Commission’s work. The report will be loaded onto the DfT website. I will let you know when this has happened. An appraisal of the costs, environmental impacts and benefits of an improvement between north of Biggleswade and north of Wyboston is part of this work.
Highways England has responded to the Draft Local Plan for Central Bedfordshire and we have had discussions with them about the A1 study.
The A428 A1 to Caxton Gibbet scheme is at preliminary design stage. Going forward and depending on which option for Black Cat is taken forward, there may or may not be scope to make improvements around Kelpie Marina.