National Highways committed to add over 150 new emergency areas on existing All Lane Running smart motorways by the end of March 2025, prioritising locations where these would provide the greatest benefit and could be delivered within the £390 million budget. The table below sets out the number of additional emergency areas delivered on each relevant motorway section.

On average, across the programme, an emergency area costs approximately £2.6 million to construct (pending final accounts). Individual emergency areas have varying design requirements, including topography, requirement for supporting structures, drainage, and technology, which mean they can cost less or more than the expected average to construct.

National Highways has recently commenced work on the M1 between junctions 16 and 19 to undertake remedial works to strengthen embankments adjacent to four new emergency areas. These works are expected to be completed by August 2026. As a result, programme close-out activities have been extended and final costs for the National Emergency Area Retrofit programme are now expected to be available in Spring 2027, subject to final accounting and internal governance.

National Highways is responsible for operating motorways in England. Through the third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3), published in March 2026, the Government has set National Highways several targeted key performance indicators covering; average delay, incident clearance, network availability, and the timeliness and accuracy of roadworks information.

National Highways will need to undertake a range of actions to meet these targets.

RIS3 also contains a number of major enhancements and smaller schemes that are aimed at addressing some of the most congested sections on the network.

Investing in maintaining and renewing the network can cause some short-term delays due to roadworks. In such cases, National Highways will take steps to mitigate impacts where possible and to keep road users informed of roadwork timings and likely impacts.

National Highways’ RIS3 Delivery Plan will also include its customer and delay action plan, where it will set out further actions it plans to address delay and to improve the experience of road users.

Road safety is a matter the Government takes very seriously and National Highways is committed to reducing the number of people killed or seriously injured on England’s motorways and major A-roads. National Highways works closely with the Police and other partners to ensure it has an evidence based understanding of fatal collisions and collision hotspots on its network, in addition to regional reviews and monitoring. This analysis supports National Highways in making targeted interventions on its network to reduce collision numbers and severity. More broadly, National Highways seeks to improve safety through its partnership working, such as with the Police and businesses to support safe driving behaviours.

Road safety is a matter the Government takes very seriously and National Highways is committed to further improving safety on England’s motorways and major A-roads. Using collision data, research and risk assessments, National Highways identifies patterns and types of collisions causing harm to road users and uses this evidence when reviewing speed limits on its roads, to ensure they are suitable for the road characteristics. National Highways also supports compliance with speed limits through its partnership working with the Police.

The Government’s decisions are enabling drivers to benefit from safer and smoother roads, while helping them to save money. Over £35 billion is being invested in local and strategic roads; the fuel duty freeze has been extended; and the fuel price finder launched. Alongside this, a £2 billion grant will support motorists who want to go electric and the Road Safety Strategy seeks to reduce deaths and serious injuries on Britain’s roads by 65% by 2035.

The Government and National Highways (NH) take road safety seriously, and we are committed to reducing the numbers of those killed and injured on our roads. Safety is at the heart of the third Road Investment Strategy, which includes a new National Programme to deliver targeted safety improvements on higher-risk roads. NH’s regional teams also undertake collision analysis and where there is evidence of an elevated collision rate at a particular location, this is investigated to understand causal factors. Appropriate remedial solutions are then developed.

NH designs and positions signs in accordance with the Traffic Signs Regulations and General Directions and the Department for Transport’s Traffic Signs Manual. When designing new or amending existing junctions, NH also designs these to the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) 'CD 122 Grade Separated Junctions'' and DMRB CD 146 'Positioning of Advance Direction Signs and Signals'. All DMRB documents are reviewed every 5 years.

The Department has no plans to make changes to the national maximum speed limits on motorways or A roads.

My previous answer on 27 April 2026 set out that the average distance between places to stop in an emergency is now less than a mile (around 0.9 miles). Design standard GD301 sets out the new spacing standard (around 3/4 mile where feasible and 1 mile maximum) and defines what a place of relative safety is. The document can be found at: GD 301 - Smart motorways.

The Department expects National Highways to carry out appropriate consultation where changes to the strategic road network may impact local communities. Where a proposal to remove lighting would directly affect a local community, National Highways would seek residents’ views through stakeholder consultation.

If the Environment Agency is notified of pollution in watercourses such as the river Lune, then this is dealt with as a pollution incident and investigated and /or attended on a risk basis. Regarding the Lune at Tebay, the Environment Agency is already actively considering how additional monitoring could support their investigations.

National Highways has completed construction of 151 additional emergency areas across the All Lane Running smart motorway network, through the National Emergency Area Retrofit programme. Across every All Lane Running motorway, the average distance between places to stop in an emergency is now less than a mile (around 0.9 miles), compared to around 1.2 miles before the retrofit.

National Highways has completed construction of 151 additional emergency areas across the all lane running (ALR) smart motorway network through the National Emergency Area Retrofit (NEAR) programme. National Highways is evaluating the effectiveness of these additional emergency areas, including impacts on live-lane stops, safety outcomes and road-user perceptions. Initial findings are expected in 2026, with a full three-year evaluation concluding in 2028.

No formal assessment has been made.

There is no barrier to the use of motorway land for generation. Motorways sometimes have spare ground, which could theoretically be used to generate power, such as by solar panels or wind turbines. There is frequently local demand for electricity, such as for lights and signs.

However, there are likely to be some practical challenges in each case. For example, developers would need to ensure that: equipment does not interfere with the flow of traffic; there is sufficient room for associated infrastructure; and it is safe for those performing maintenance on the systems.

The Department has worked closely with National Highways, the Home Office and the police to respond to a technical anomaly affecting some speed cameras on a limited number of motorways and A-roads. National Highways always keeps safety issues under review, and undertook a comprehensive safety assessment in this case. National Highways do not routinely publish these assessments.

The public must have confidence in technology on our roads, which is why we have announced an independent review into how the anomaly occurred, its handling, and the changes needed to ensure this cannot happen again.