National Highways boss implies that major road building maybe ending

[lachlan]

It's also public acceptance of schemes, which has been much diminished since the late 90s due to land take and environmental concerns. Much of what has been done since then is widening existing roads, bypasses or relatively short link roads. In previous decades road building was based on the premise of 'predict and provide' but it's been fully accepted for a long time now that it's not a sustainable plan.

Look at all the outcry over HS2 and imagine what it would be like if an 8 lane motorway of similar scale was proposed. Just not going to happen.

The existence of HS2 is essentially a tacit acknowledgement that road building was finished. Railways still cause induced demand etc. but the benefit/impact ratio (i.e. passenger capacity vs land take) is much better

I do think there is a good chance the Silvertown Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing will get built. I was always disappointing how the organisations campaigning against HS2 were relatively silent on these projects

 

[Ken H]

It was a bottleneck even before the dialling project. How they thought a dualled A46 to Leicester and Nottingham, in conjunction with the existingdualled A4y to Lincoln and A1 wouldn't cause an issue on the single carriageway road with 3 busy roundabouts linking it all up. Just laughable. Blind Freddie could have told them it wouldn't work.

Half of the problem is the level crossing on the old Great North Road into Newark. Queues from that frequently back up onto the bypass. And Newark is a nightmare at the best of times. still loads of traffic despite the bypasses.

 

[SynthD]

I do think there is a good chance the Silvertown Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing will get built. I was always disappointing how the organisations campaigning against HS2 were relatively silent on these projects

Much of the anti HS2 protests were at stages the crossing has not reached, eg consultation.

 

[Sonik]

I do think there is a good chance the Silvertown Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing will get built. I was always disappointing how the organisations campaigning against HS2 were relatively silent on these projects

Yes it's possible, but both are infill schemes - nothing like the scale of HS2.

 

[The Ham]

Yes it's possible, but both are infill schemes - nothing like the scale of HS2.

Until you look at the scale of carbon emissions from their construction and use, which are huge and make HS2 look like it's creating nothing at all.

HS2 over a 120 year period was cited as creating 1.5 million tonnes.

Lower Thames Crossing will be 2 million tonnes for construction PLUS 3.2 million tonnes for the first 60 years of use.

Whilst just over 5 million tonnes isn't that much more than 1.5 million tonnes, were comparing a road of about 15 miles with a railway of over 300 miles and the road is only for half the time of the railway.

On a per mile per year basis HS2 would be 41 tonnes whilst Lower Thames Crossing would be 5,777 tonnes.

When you look at our that way, which is more important not to build if we are serious about reaching net zero?

 

[stuu]

I do think there is a good chance the Silvertown Tunnel and Lower Thames Crossing will get built. I was always disappointing how the organisations campaigning against HS2 were relatively silent on these projects

As the TBM is being installed, I would say the chance is extremely high

 

[lachlan]

As the TBM is being installed, I would say the chance is extremely high

Yes and personally I would count it as "major road building".

 

[biko]

It was a bottleneck even before the dialling project. How they thought a dualled A46 to Leicester and Nottingham, in conjunction with the existingdualled A4y to Lincoln and A1 wouldn't cause an issue on the single carriageway road with 3 busy roundabouts linking it all up. Just laughable. Blind Freddie could have told them it wouldn't work.

I just had a look at the map of the area and indeed it looks like it's a real bottleneck, unless much of the traffic on the A46 originates in Newark. It could well be that a model was used that doesn't include junction delays and capacity. I expect that the model suggested an intensity that can be handled by a single carriageway, but only if there are no junctions. So (as usual) the model results were incorrectly interpreted or the model used wasn't up for this job.

 

[Ken H]

I just had a look at the map of the area and indeed it looks like it's a real bottleneck, unless much of the traffic on the A46 originates in Newark. It could well be that a model was used that doesn't include junction delays and capacity. I expect that the model suggested an intensity that can be handled by a single carriageway, but only if there are no junctions. So (as usual) the model results were incorrectly interpreted or the model used wasn't up for this job.

Job done on the cheap. Roundabouts rather than flyovers.
Getting rid of the roundabouts will sort most of it.

 

[stuu]

Job done on the cheap. Roundabouts rather than flyovers.
Getting rid of the roundabouts will sort most of it.

Although in their wisdom Highways England or whatever they are called are allowing a developer to build a new roundabout on the new dual carriageway just west of Newark

 

[trebor79]

Job done on the cheap. Roundabouts rather than flyovers.
Getting rid of the roundabouts will sort most of it.

Actually if you know the area you'll know it 'aint that simple. Most of the bypass is on quite a tall embankment over a flood plain, with two bridges over the Trent. Dualling it is going to be very expensive, as would getting rid of the roundabouts. It would cost an immense amount of money to put in grade separated junctions at the A1 end of the bypass.

 

[ABB125]

Although in their wisdom Highways England or whatever they are called are allowing a developer to build a new roundabout on the new dual carriageway just west of Newark

That's a problem of the current planning system in this country. National Highways (and local authorities) effectively have no choice but to allow this, because otherwise the developer will simply walk away if a proper junction is demanded, and then housing targets etc won't be met. Though National Highways do seem to be particularly spineless when it comes to such situations...

 

[Dr Hoo]

That's a problem of the current planning system in this country. National Highways (and local authorities) effectively have no choice but to allow this, because otherwise the developer will simply walk away if a proper junction is demanded, and then housing targets etc won't be met. Though National Highways do seem to be particularly spineless when it comes to such situations...

Can you clarify if you are advocating a ‘flyovers before additional housing’ policy? I.e NH should force the developer to walk away (or make the houses unaffordable to ‘ordinary people’)

 

[ABB125]

Can you clarify if you are advocating a ‘flyovers before additional housing’ policy? I.e NH should force the developer to walk away (or make the houses unaffordable to ‘ordinary people’)

Not necessarily. The developers know that if they say they can't afford a better junction/building one will make the houses unaffordable/the development will become "unviable" etc etc (when in reality it will simply slightly reduce the profit gained from the development), the relevant road authority basically can't do anything about it (because they won't meet their targets etc).

And then you get farcical situations like M49 J1 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5440357,-2.6391292,774m/data=!3m1!1e3, where National Highways spent tens of millions building a junction for an industrial estate, but the developers aren't paying for the short (very short, a few hundred metres!) link needed from the roundabout to the existing estate roads, which NH and the local council naively assumed they would do.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Not necessarily. The developers know that if they say they can't afford a better junction/building one will make the houses unaffordable/the development will become "unviable" etc etc (when in reality it will simply slightly reduce the profit gained from the development), the relevant road authority basically can't do anything about it (because they won't meet their targets etc).

And then you get farcical situations like M49 J1 https://www.google.com/maps/@51.5440357,-2.6391292,774m/data=!3m1!1e3, where National Highways spent tens of millions building a junction for an industrial estate, but the developers aren't paying for the short (very short, a few hundred metres!) link needed from the roundabout to the existing estate roads, which NH and the local council naively assumed they would do.

Although in their wisdom Highways England or whatever they are called are allowing a developer to build a new roundabout on the new dual carriageway just west of Newark

Noting that the M49 'proper' junction cost £50m, how does that compare with the likely profit on the new housing development in Newark, even scaled down for a Trunk road rather than a Motorway? (I have been unable to find any more details about the scheme referenced in the @stuu post.)

 

[ABB125]

Noting that the M49 'proper' junction cost £50m, how does that compare with the likely profit on the new housing development in Newark, even scaled down for a Trunk road rather than a Motorway? (I have been unable to find any more details about the scheme referenced in the @stuu post.)

That I don't know. However, the Grantham Southern Link Road (£102 million) is mostly being paid for (£70 million) by developers. This includes over 2 miles of new road and a grade-separated junction on the A1, of a similar scale to what would be appropriate to the Newark Southern Link Road. So it's clearly possible for developers (admittedly probably several rather than one) to pay that sort of money for road infrastructure.
To quote a local authority webpage:

The new road will also open up 278 hectares of land, adjacent to the southern edge of Newark’s built-up area, for housing and employment use. This area has planning permission for over 3,000 houses (including affordable housing), two retail and commercial centres, a 60-bed care home, two primary schools, community buildings, a medical centre, 50 hectares of mixed-use commercial development and landscaped green community spaces.

Newark Southern Link Road | Newark | D2N2

D2N2 is proud to be investing £7million of Local Growth Funding into the Newark Southern Link Road.

d2n2lep.org

So 3000 houses currently have planning permission which will be "unlocked" (I hate that word in this context) by the new road and junction at Newark. Let's assume that the average sale price of those houses is £300,000 (if anything, I'd say that's too low). There's an old saying that a third of the cost of a house is land, a third is building costs and a third is profit. Applying this principle, each house will generate £100,000 profit. Therefore £300 million total profit. From just the houses, not including the "retail and commercial centres" etc.

Whilst there are definitely some flaws in this calculation, it shows how much money might be available for schemes such as this.

(Note that I'm not demanding that all the profit goes towards infrastructure.)


Of course, is any sane country, the National Highways scheme to dual the A46 northern bypass would be slightly expanded in scope (and budget) to include grade-separation of the existing Farndon roundabout, whilst also taking into account the new southern link road, to produce the optimum solution of a single grade-separated junction. Instead, not only will the expensively-dualled and grade-separated A46 still crash into the existing roundabouts at either end of the bypass, another roundabout will be added. Why do road authorities always like to give the impression that they're absolutely clueless about the real world?

 

[stuu]

Noting that the M49 'proper' junction cost £50m, how does that compare with the likely profit on the new housing development in Newark, even scaled down for a Trunk road rather than a Motorway? (I have been unable to find any more details about the scheme referenced in the @stuu post.)

The silly thing about the Newark example is there is an overbridge a couple of hundred metres south of the new roundabout - slip roads could be added to that to make it into a junction, which might even be cheaper as more work could be done offline. Traffic management is very expensive

 

[The Ham]

Whilst there are definitely some flaws in this calculation, it shows how much money might be available for schemes such as this.

One big flaw is that a lot of the infrastructure costs come out of the land costs.

Typically a farmer will see their land value ticket due to planning and then see the developers subtracting the cost of the infrastructure from the sale price and getting quite a bit less than they thought.

 

[Dr Hoo]

This is turning out to be an interesting and instructive discussion (although I am having some difficulty in piecing together all of the Newark story because much of it seems to involve other public bodies/funders rather than either Highways England or property developers). The story has developed over several years and I am not clear whether all of the Southern Link Road has even been built/completed yet, let along house construction started and profits realised.

Highways England's Roads Investment Strategy 2 - 2020-25 includes various A46 schemes along its length but there isn't obviously any 'spare cash' to spend on extra flyovers at tens-of-millions a pop.

I was under the impression that the builders' 'rule of thirds' (i.e. one third profit) had long fallen by the wayside. For the purposes of s106 'appeals' against excessive obligations the generally accepted gross profit margin is only 15%. That is before charges like financing costs so the realisable profit will be even less. I would assume that many s106 obligations for housing schemes would go to local services rather than Trunk Highway improvements.

Is there any evidence that there is 'spare' s106 'headroom' to be 'claimed' in this case if HE were to be more 'spine-full'?

In other news, construction costs are under great pressure thanks to skills shortages, increased input prices, rising interest rates and so on.

 

[Dstock7080]

As the TBM is being installed, I would say the chance is extremely high

update today:

Silvertown tunnelling machine (TBM) breaks into the rotation shaft at North Greenwich at 2130 last night. The 1200 tonne shield (named Jill) will now be 'spun' 180 degrees to set off back on the NB drive and back across the river. The challenge is taking all the systems and services around ready to restart the tunnelling. Great work so far from Riverlinx and the TfL Team!

 

[AndrewE]

update today:

there's still time to turn it into a single tram and cycle tunnel...