How Britain's motorway problem let European rivals speed ahead

Telegraph

12-05-2025

In 1958, civil engineers in the North West of England pioneered a new form of British infrastructure project, constructing the country's first stretch of motorway known as the Preston bypass.
At the time, then-prime minister Harold Macmillan said it was not only a 'fine thing in itself', but 'a token of what was to follow'.
But almost 70 years on, Britain's motorway network has lost its way.
No longer a global leader, it pales in comparison to its European neighbours, fuelling concerns that a lack of connectivity is holding back UK growth.
Motorways span 2,330 miles across the UK, far from the 8,100 miles found in Germany and 7,300 in France.
Even the Netherlands, which is five times smaller than the UK in terms of size, has a network spanning 2,193 miles.
Currently, there are no plans to build any new motorways across the UK, while calls for a new dual carriageway linking Oxford and Cambridge have fallen by the wayside.
Instead, the Government is planning to upgrade a 10-mile stretch of the A428 between Milton Keynes and Cambridge.
According to the Department for Transport, the UK built just 65 miles of motorway between 2014 and 2024, epitomising a damning lack of infrastructure investment across the country.
Unsurprisingly, many fear this dearth of development is damaging Britain's growth prospects, with cost often cited as a key blocker.
Figures from Boston Consulting Group (BCG), a consultancy, show that roads in the UK are twice as expensive to build than in Germany.
The average cost for a flat road in the UK is £8.45m per km, compared with a European average of £5.77m per km, according to BCG.
'I think a long-running problem in the UK is that we have generally underinvested and I think roads have been caught up in that,' says Raoul Ruparel, the director of BCG's Centre for Growth.
'We have underestimated in this country the broader benefits of connecting up different parts of the country, different regions, different cities, and the ability that brings to spread innovation, move human capital and people around, and access different labour markets.'
Compared to other European countries, the UK was also found to be more likely to complete road projects late and over budget, with long planning times leading to significant delays and additional costs.
That is unlike in France, where a pipeline of road projects is delivered frequently and on time, according to Ruparel.
'I think what you see in the UK, in motorways and roads, is a bit of a peak and trough,' he says. 'We go on a big investment for a few years and then it drops off, which means that people leave the industry and move into different infrastructure sectors.
'Once they've left and you've lost those skills, it's not always easy to bring them back.'
As part of France's road network, over 70pc of its motorways have tolls operated by private companies.
The companies are required to contribute a proportion of their income to France's national road network, which in part allows the country to maintain and further develop its motorways.
By contrast, the UK has just two tolls on its motorways along the M6 and the M25 Dartford Crossing.
Unlike France's gradual motorway construction, the UK underwent a development boom in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But since then, the construction of new projects has dramatically tailed off.
Benjamin Caswell, a senior economist at the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, has highlighted the economic benefits that new motorway construction could bring to the UK.
'The impact in the short term is, when you've got spades in the ground, you get a bit of a demand side injection because those workers are put to work,' he says.
'Then once those projects are complete, if you've improved the supply infrastructure in the UK economy, then people, trucks and businesses can get their goods to where they need to go. People can move around more easily to go to work.'
As well as a lack of new developments, the UK's motorway network has also been impacted by the failed rollout of smart motorways.
They had planned to turn the hard shoulder, which is provided so vehicles at imminent risk of breaking down have a safe place to pull over away from 70mph traffic, into a live running lane.
However, after years of planning and vast expenditure, former prime minister Rishi Sunak in 2023 scrapped all smart motorway plans owing to cost and safety fears.
This debacle served as yet another setback for road-building across Britain.
As well as helping everyday drivers get from A to B, British motorways are also a crucial form of connectivity for cross-country supply chains and time-sensitive deliveries.
Yet worsening congestion caused by a lack of road capacity is increasingly frustrating businesses that rely on motorways to transport freight, including Igus, a manufacturer based in Northampton.
Matthew Aldridge, the managing director of Igus, said: 'Our customers order from us in good faith that the parts will be received within 24 hours, but congestion and traffic jams, blockages on the motorway network means that those promises are broken, and it's that horrible situation where there's nothing we can do about it, nothing our suppliers can do about it.
'This is a common complaint from the sector. The motorway network has suffered from massive, massive underinvestment over the years.'
Such objections are sparking fears that Britain's ailing motorway network is holding back the country's economic growth prospects.
'Now 54pc of manufacturers told us that in the last 10 years, they believe that the quality of road networks has actually gotten worse in the UK,' says Fhaheen Khan, a senior economist at Make UK.
'That has had an impact on their investment decisions, their ability to expand and their ability to access people.'
Since coming to power, the Labour Government has pledged to 'get Britain building' through new infrastructure and housing projects.
However, when it comes to motorways, the Government's ambitions are already falling flat.
In one of her first moves as chancellor, Rachel Reeves scrapped the £1.7bn A303 Stonehenge tunnel scheme.
She also delayed publishing a new road investment strategy until next year and cut funding for the Department for Transport, sparking fears that Britain's road network will remain trapped in the slow lane for the foreseeable future.
'These [road] schemes, they're so important for the UK economy, but they're an easy political target,' says Tom Lees, the managing director of Bradshaw Advisory consultancy. 'It's quite easy to pause or slow down a big road scheme or a train scheme, versus saying we're going to have to find cuts in the NHS.
'Whether you agree with it or disagree with it, these sorts of schemes take years of planning and research and development, and then when politicians come and cancel them, it takes years and years to get them back up again.'