Question to the Department for Transport:
To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, if he will make it his policy that the production of a provisional environmental impact assessment report is undertaken before any decision is made to identify a preferred route for a new road.
On the Strategic Road Network, a Preferred Route Announcement (PRA) is made at the end of National Highway’s Project Control Framework (PCF) Stage 2 (Options Selection).
Prior to the PRA, National Highways undertake an environmental assessment of all new road projects and produce the following documents.
Decisions on which transport schemes are taken forward are made not solely on the benefit to cost ratio, but on the basis of the five case model outlined in the Department Transport’s Business Case in line with the principles of the Treasury Green Book.