Prime Minister intervenes to stop further smart motorway projects

All 14 planned smart motorway projects have been scrapped by the prime minister, cutting more than £1bn from public sector infrastructure spending.

Despite National Highways maintaining that smart motorways are safer than conventional motorways with a continuous hard shoulder, prime minister Rishi Sunak is making good on a promise he made during the Conservative party leadership campaign last summer.

He said, “All drivers deserve to have confidence in the roads they use to get around the country. That’s why last year I pledged to stop the building of all new smart motorways, and today I’m making good on that promise.

“Many people across the country rely on driving to get to work, to take their children to school and go about their daily lives and I want them to be able to do so with full confidence that the roads they drive on are safe.”

New smart motorways – including the 11 already paused from the second road investment strategy (2020 to 2025) and the three earmarked for construction during the third road investment strategy (2025 to 2030) – have been removed from government road-building plans.

A £900m programme of retrofit work, ordered by Grant Shapps in 2021 when he was transport secretary, is underway to make existing smart motorways less dangerous. This includes updated stopped vehicle detection technology and more frequent refuge areas.