The government is to invest £175m in England’s 50 most risky ‘A’ roads that were identified by the Road Safety Foundation in its latest report Making Road Travel as Safe as Rail and Air.

The new Department for Transport funding package follows the  Chancellor’s autumn statement and the publication of the 2016 British EuroRAP results which identified Britain’s unacceptably high risk roads.

The 50 roads identified for treatment are spread throughout every English region. Among the roads set for investment improvement are:

  • A 29.1km section of the A588 (Blackpool to Lancaster)
  • A 13.3km section of the A6033 (Littleborough to Todmorden)
  • An  8.7km section of the A4173 (Gloucester to Pitchcombe)

A £1m package of improvements which will help to improve Britain’s most persistent high risk road, the A285 in West Sussex, was announced by the Roads’ Minister Andrew Jones at the EuroRAP results launch on 14 November.

The Road Safety Foundation said: ‘We welcome this firm commitment to tackle high risk roads. Our recently launched reportMaking Road Travel as Safe as Rail and Airspells out and maps where the unacceptably high risk roads are. It identifies the economic cost of failing to address the risks and outlines the types of simple improvements to safety features such as road layouts and pedestrian crossings that could save lives and prevent serious trauma while delivering huge financial returns.

‘Infrastructure safety measures are quick to implement, can be done anywhere in the country and are certain to deliver.’