The Road Construction Process

There are lots of different terms banded about when a new road is being considered and designed, and it can be hard to know what it all means. Put simply, the road building process in England goes as follows:

1. A study is carried out on a road with congestion or accident problems. It reports its findings on whether road building is required to the Department for Transport.
2. If the DfT agrees that some road building is necessary, it instructs the Highways Agency to come up with some proposals for the road.
3. The Highways Agency creates proposals for the road improvements. This can take anywhere between a few months and a couple of years, depending on the complexity of the scheme.
4. A Public Consultation is held in the local area, where officials discuss the proposed scheme with local people and get their feedback.
5. Feedback from the consultation is used to adjust the scheme proposals if necessary. The final proposal is then presented to the Department for Transport.
6. If the DfT are happy with the proposal, then they announce that it has been added to the Targetted Programme of Improvements (TPI).
7. The Preferred Route of the scheme is then announced, which details the route that has been chosen for the road.
8. The Highways Agency then looks into the scheme in more detail, drawing up the exact design of the road. This can take up to a year.
9. Draft Orders are published. These are legal documents that describe the exact amounts of land that need to be bought to construct the road. At this stage, anyone directly affected by the scheme can object if they have issues with the Orders.
10. If there were objections to the Orders, then a Public Inquiry is held (this is usually the case). This allows both the supporters and objectors to the scheme to put forward their cases, and an independent inspector decides whether the road should proceed.
11. If the road is to proceed, then the Final Orders are published. These may be identical to the Draft Orders, or they may contain amendments required by the inspector.
12. A contract to construct the road is awarded to a construction company, and then the actual construction work can begin.

As you can see, it is a very long and drawn out process. The entire thing from beginning to end tends to take about 7-10 years. At any stage in a scheme's progress, it can be (and regularly is) abandoned or indefinitely postponed by the government.