Motorways to lose hundreds of miles of hard shoulder to ease jams, despite safety fears

MORE than 300 miles of England’s busiest motorways will have their hard shoulder permanently converted to an extra lane under plans for a “cut-price” answer to congestion.

Highways England, the government body for the country’s 4,300-mile motorway and A-road network, intends to convert more than 15 per cent of the country’s motorways to “All Lane Running” over the next nine years, at a cost of £6 billion.

But a cross-party committee of MPs warns today of “major safety concerns” about the plan, and has accused ministers of introducing changes by stealth.

Louise Ellman, chairman of the Commons transport committee, ac- cused the Government of taking “a short cut at the expense of lives”.

She told The Daily Telegraph: “All-Lane Running has only been piloted for around a year, and there just isn’t enough information to assess its safety. We took evidence that said it would lead to a 216 per cent increase in the risk of a vehicle stopping in a live lane, which will put lives at risk. It also means that if there is an incident the emergency services will take longer to get to it because there is no emergency lane for their use.”

Pilot schemes have been running on parts of the M25, M1 and M6, and some 30 new schemes, ranging in length from five to 20 miles, are planned.

A Department for Transport spokesman said: “In the two All Lane Running sections on the M25, accidents were down 17 per cent and casualty rates fell by 21 per cent in the first year.

“As the committee recognises, the busiest journey times have almost halved, and overall journey times are more reliable and predictable than before. We will be considering all the transport select committee’s findings carefully and responding shortly.”

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