UK builds only 65 kilometers of motorway in ten years

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Britain has built only 65 kilometers of new motorway in the last decade, with a large proportion of this figure the result of a statistical peculiarity instead of real construction.

The length of the British motorways increased from 2,265 to 2,330 miles between 2014 and 2024, equivalent to 65 miles, according to the Department of Transportation.

Some other European countries have built thousands of kilometers of new roads during the same period.

But the former DFT official, Michael Dnes, told Financial Times that only three new sections of motorway were opened during this period, at the A1 (m) in Newcastle, the M8 near Glasgow and the M90/Queensferry cross.

The combined length of these sections completes 24 miles, according to DNA calculations, which is now working for Stonehaven’s consultancy, raising a matter of the Parador of the other 41 miles.

Dnes said that the discrepancy could be explained by improving the accuracy of Ordnance’s surveys maps. The National Map Agency of Britain can more precisely measure the so -called “Wiggle” on the roads, which has expanded marginally the recorded length of the roads.

Dnes said it was a serious sense that the progress in the construction of freeways in Britain was so slow that it could be “affected by literal rounding errors”.

New freeways are often controversial to environmentalists due to their impact on climate change and local biodiversity. However, many drivers are frustrated with the roads often aware of Britain.

Statistics will ask questions about the UK that has been so slow to build motorways in recent decades, with only 422 miles added since 1990.

In the same period of 35 years, Spain has built 6,917 miles, France 3,057 miles, Germany 1,440 miles, Turkey 2,082 miles and Poland 1,545 miles, according to EU data.

A DFT official said that Britain had not built much freeway in recent years because successive governments had “prioritized improvements to the existing motorway network”.

Another official said that the United Kingdom motorway system was more “mature” than much larger European countries, having grown rapidly in the 1950’s and 1960’s, and therefore they need to expand.

Edmund King, president of the AA Motoring organization, said that successive governments had supported the “smart” motorways “to the detriment of improving the network.

Smart freeways are sections of road where traffic flow is managed by adjusting speed limits. They are intended to increase their ability using the hard shoulder as a career lane.

But King said in practice, “they do not work as a third of the drivers do not use the inner lane” for fear of broken vehicles.

He added that the sudden enclosures of the lane could cause more congestion than on a regular road, where there is a hard shoulder, emphasizing that $ 900 million have been spent improving “poorly designed” systems.

Despite the Government’s commitment to deliver a “record level of spending on the fixation of the road network” to the budget, it is expected that investment on construction roads will fall in the coming year 5 percent about the current assignment.

Noble Francis, director of Economics of the Construction Products Association, said: “Anyone traveling to the roads in the United Kingdom knows that we need improvements in both the existing road quality and the additional roads to facilitate travel.”

Asphalt sales volumes have declined in five of the last six years and are now in the lowest in a decade, according to the mineral Products Association, which represents the heavy material industry.

Aurelie Delannoy, director of the AMP’s economic affairs, said that asphalt producers continue to face “investment strategies affected by delays, cancellations and a reduction in the channeling of new works, along with the worsening budget pressures on local authorities affecting road maintenance.”