EXCLUSIVE
More than half of the £4.5M that Highways England has spent publicising smart motorways was spent in the last two years, it can be revealed.
Figures obtained by NCE via a freedom of information request show that Highways England spent just £228,000 on its campaign to inform the public how to use smart motorways when the first major all-lane running smart motorways were introduced in 2014.
By way of comparison, Highways England spent £1.3M in 2019 and a further £999,000 in 2020 (see full breakdown below).
The safety of smart motorways – where the hard shoulder has been replaced by a live lane – has been repeatedly called into question. Last month, Highways England was referred to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) for manslaughter in connection with the death of a woman on a smart motorway.
Senior police officers and road industry professionals are now questioning if the campaign to educate the public on the use of smart motorways could have been handled differently.
AA head of roads policy Jack Cousens said: “The change from traditional to smart motorways is arguably one of the biggest changes on the strategic road network in modern times.
“Such a significant change should have sparked a major public awareness campaign from the beginning to help educate and inform drivers what they were and how to use them. However, this didn’t happen and Highways England have been playing catch up ever since.”
Smart motorways campaign expenditure 2014-2020
| Year | Budget |
| 2014 | £228,000 |
| 2015 | £350,000 |
| 2016 | £288,000 |
| 2017 | £920,000 |
| 2018 | £495,000 |
| 2019 | £1,300,000 |
| 2020 | £999,000 |
| Total | £4,580,000 |
full article here
I’d like to see a breakdown of the cost breakdown, because before this month I’d never seen or heard an advert for smart motorways