£50m to improve safety of UK roads

£47.5 million invested to improve the country’s most high-risk roads. 

27 new schemes will be delivered through the third round of the Safer Roads Fund, with a focus on: 

• Re-designing junctions
• Improving signing and road markings

The programme is expected to reduce the risk of collisions, thus reducing congestion, journey times, and emissions. 

Allocation of funds to each scheme was decided based on data independently collected by the Road Safety Foundation looking at fatal and serious injuries sustained alongside traffic levels. 

Impact 

According to estimates provided by the Road Safety Foundation, the funding for these schemes should prevent around 760 fatal and serious injuries over the next 20 years, with a societal benefit of £420 million. 

By factoring whole life costs, the benefit cost ratio of the investment is projected to be 7.4, meaning for every £1, £7.40 will add to social benefit. 

Full Scope

The Safer Roads Fund has already invested £100 million to improve 50 high-risk roads in England, most of which are rural roads. 

With a push for enhanced road safety engineering interventions, the programme looks to prevent around 1,450 fatal and serious injuries over the next 20 years.

The government also plans to establish a Road Safety Investigation Branch and recruit a specialised team of inspectors to help better mitigate collisions. 

“We’re injecting £47.5 million so that local councils around the country have the support they need to keep everyone safe, while reducing congestion and emissions and supporting local economies, said transport secretary Mark Harper. 

The 27 schemes that will receive funding include: 

Total: £47,569,375

The Department for Transport was approached for comment. 

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