November/December Issue 59 - Flipbook - Page 14
NEWS
SMART MOTORWAYS ARE NOT SUCH A CLEVER
IDEA BUT WE ARE STUCK WITH THEM, TRANSPORT
SECRETARY GRANT SHAPPS ADMITS
Grant Shapps has ruled out
scrapping
so-called
‘smart
motorways’, while admitting
their name was a ‘misnomer’.
The Transport Secretary said
yesterday that he ‘wouldn’t have
gone about it like this’ were he in
charge when they were launched
and said mistakes were made in
their roll-out which initially made
them less safe.
But he told MPs reversing them
would mean acquiring land the
equivalent of 700 Wembley
stadium-sized football pitches,
destroying swathes of the Green
Belt and buying up people’s homes.
He also insisted that, following
a safety drive since becoming
Transport Secretary in summer
2019, the roads were now much
safer and that death rates on
conventional motorways are higher.
He was quizzed about the
controversial roads, which have no
hard shoulder because it has been
turned into a fourth live lane of
traffic, by the Commons’ transport
committee of MPs.
technology which can detect
marooned cars within 20 seconds
would be rolled out on the entire
network by the end of next year.
The target has been brought
forward from 2023, as revealed by
the Mail last month.
Mr Shapps said: ‘I don’t want to
carry on with what we’ve seen
of smart motorways, the system
I’ve inherited...I wouldn’t have
gone about it like this, and I don’t
approve of the fact that emergency
Asked whether smart motorways areas were being spaced way too
are here to stay, he said: ‘A lot of far apart.
people say just undo it, and I’ve
looked at that and it would require ‘I’ve said they have to be ideally
the equivalent of land of 700 three-quarters of a mile apart, no
Wembley stadium-sized football more than a mile, and I’ve ordered
pitches to somehow undo all of Highways England to get on with it.’
this and we’d have to buy people’s
homes, destroy acres of Green Instead of a hard shoulder smart
Belt - I don’t see that there’s a route motorways have emergency refuge
through to simply undo it. We’ve areas which drivers can pull into.
got to make what’s there safe.’
However, they are spaced up to 1.5
miles apart, meaning drivers can
He pledged that vital radar become stuck in live traffic.
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Mr Shapps went on: ‘I’m not sure
it would be desirable [to reverse
them] given the death rates are
higher on conventional motorways,
so you would be essentially doing
so going against the evidence,
which would be the wrong thing to
do.
‘I think the right thing to do is put all
these additional [safety] measures
in place...why these things were
ever called smart motorways when
they seem to be anything but, I
think was a misnomer.
He also insisted that, following
a safety drive since becoming
Transport Secretary in summer
2019, the roads were now much
safer and that death rates on
conventional motorways are higher.
Four lane Smart motorway above
‘So I’m not going to build things
called smart motorways, but I want
all of our motorways to be a lot
better, a lot safer.’
