The Government appears to have abandoned its commitment to create a National Roads Fund (NRF) through the hypothecation of vehicle excise duty (VED), undoing a long-standing promise without informing MPs or the public.
The move to quietly drop hypothecation comes hand-in-hand with a shift of billions of promised funds away from the local network to the national network, raising fears for the survival of the major road network (MRN) concept.
It also undoes a distinct part of the policy sell behind Highways England's second Road Investment Strategy (RIS 2) now worth £27.4bn.
Despite repeated requests from Highways, the Department for Transport and the Treasury have both declined to confirm that the pledge remains Government policy.
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