While most of the country has been in lock-down, afraid of the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic for themselves and their loved ones, Highways England has used the crisis to press ahead with its smart motorways death-traps.
According to the Builders’ Conference, the value of construction contracts boomed last month thanks, in large part, to the smart motorways project. As many of us were sheltering anxiously or working flat out in hospitals and care homes to save lives, the total value of contracts signed in May was up by 50 percent, to £9.7 billion, on the year previous.
Some £1.5 billion of this is accounted for by a Highways England contract with BMJV to remove hard shoulders from motorways.
[https://www.theconstructionindex.co.uk/news/view/new-contract-awards-leap-50-during-lockdown]
It is one of three contractors—the others being Costain and Balfour Beatty—to be named as a partner in the £4.5 billion smart motorway programme.
It was only on March 12 that Transport Secretary Grant Shapps announced the results of the government stock-take of Smart Motorways—a review that did nothing to address the multiple failings that caused multiple deaths. As SMK warned at the time, the review was a massive con-trick. All its findings and so-called “evidence” was collated (or omitted) to fit a pre-determined conclusion; that “Smart motorways keep the country moving.”
Eleven days later, the country went into lock-down. Like vultures circling their prey, what has been a disaster for so many has been an opportunity for Highways England.
With an order to stay at home in place, and so little traffic, work has been finishing ahead of schedule. It seems the devil really does make work for idle hands. Highways England intends that, with so many lives lost, jobs and livelihoods destroyed in the last six weeks, people’s focus will be elsewhere.
All we can say is for us, it won’t. Sadly, too many of us have been sheltering without husbands, wives, mothers, fathers—even children—due to the actions of Highways England. We have felt their absence more than ever if that were possible.
That’s why Highways England should keep looking over its shoulder because we’re on its case and we won’t let go.
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