Legal challenge lodged against National Highways’ £950M Cambridge road scheme

The new 16km dual carriageway, which will link the A1 Black Cat roundabout in Bedfordshire to the A428 Caxton Gibbet in Cambridgeshire was given the green light by former transport secretary Grant Shapps in August. National Highways says it will “fill in the missing link of a dual carriageway on the strategic road network between Milton Keynes and Cambridge, helping drivers save up to an hour-and-a-half on their journeys every week”. Skanska was awarded the construction contract in March 2021, when the cost was expected to be £507M.

TAN has accused the government of failing to assess the climate impacts of the scheme at regional and local levels. The group is questioning why the government failed to implement its existing environmental policy in light of the fact that the road’s construction will see a significant loss of hedgerow habitat.

It is also interrogating the need for the road, which will run in the same corridor as the under-construction East West Railway – although Shapps said there is “uncertainty and lack of detail around the East West Rail project” in his letter granting the development consent order for the A428 improvement.

The A428 scheme is among the 138 projects to be accelerated as part of the government’s Growth Plan 2022. However, TAN says that its inclusion in this list “appears odd” as it is one of the highest carbon emitting schemes in Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) – the government’s major road investment portfolio for the years 2020-2025. National Highways’ figures submitted as part of its DCO application reveal that carbon emissions from the road’s construction and the extra traffic will total over 3.5Mt.

The campaign group also says that with spiralling construction costs – something that has been seen on multiple recent road schemes – “the economic case for the road looks weak”.

TAN is now awaiting permission from the High Court to proceed with its case.

TAN director Chris Todd said: “Building new roads is an inefficient way of growing the economy, while causing untold environmental damage. It diverts scarce public funds away from more effective measures, so could actually slow down growth.

“The A428 is one of the biggest climate busting schemes in the Government's roads programme. Yet the impact on regional and local carbon targets has been completely ignored. Similarly, before Liz Truss’s Government has reformed environmental protections we are seeing existing policy sidelined. It would seem that the attack on nature has already started.

“The scheme represents a trebling of road capacity for much of its length, an expansion that is totally unwarranted. It will increase traffic on the surrounding road network, undermining the economy while driving up emissions. Given that we need to ‘use our cars less’, it’s madness to be building new roads that increase traffic.”

National Highways A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet project director Lee Galloway said: “We are working with the Department for Transport who is responding to a claim for permission to seek a judicial review of the decision to grant a Development Consent Order (DCO) for the A428 Black Cat to Caxton Gibbet improvements. The challenge is currently under consideration by the High Court, and we await the outcome.

“We stand by our plans and remain committed to improving journeys for hundreds of thousands between Milton Keynes, Bedford and Cambridge. Our proposals will improve safety, connect communities and deliver a huge economic boost to the region.”

The A428 scheme was also downgraded from green to amber in the Infrastructure and Projects Authority’s 2022 annual review, meaning “successful delivery appears feasible but significant issues already exist, requiring management attention”.

TAN has previously taken forward legal cases against the government’s RIS2 and the National Policy Statement for National Networks (NSPNN) to the High Court. Following the group’s work, in July 2021 Shapps agreed to review the NSPNN, which was published in 2014, though this process is not expected to be complete until spring 2023 at the earliest. TAN appealed to the high court to suspend the NSPNN while it is under review, but this was thrown out in March this year.

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