Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, what total length of new (a) road and (b) rail was laid in rural areas between 2010 and 2015; what the cost to the public purse was of such new road and rail; and if he will make a statement.

Roads

The Department does not publish an estimate of total new road constructed in England for any point in time. However, it does publish estimates of road length in each year as part of the Road Lengths in Great Britain National Statistics release. The latest available information is for 2014 and is available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/road-network-size-and-condition.

In England, the total length of rural local authority managed classified ‘A’ road and rural minor road increased by 367 miles between 2010 and 2014. The length of motorway managed by local authorities remained constant between 2010 and 2014.

The length of rural trunk ‘A’ road in England increased by 7 miles between 2010 and 2014. The Department does not publish separate road length figures for urban and rural motorways, although total trunk motorway length increased by 22 miles.

The Department for Communities and Local Government publishes information on expenditure by local authorities on the construction and improvement of roads in England. This information is not disaggregated to show spend on rural roads and therefore represents expenditure on roads in all areas by authorities. This information is available on GOV.UK: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/local-authority-capital-expenditure-receipts-and-financing.

Rail

There has been very little change to the length of Network Rail routes open for traffic across Great Britain between 2010 and 2015. The focus has been on making more intensive use of the existing network with additional train services and new stations as the Government undertakes the largest rail investment programme since Victorian times.

The Office of Rail and Road publishes statistics annually on the total length of rail route on its Data Portal (http://dataportal.orr.gov.uk). Information is not available for rural routes.

More detail about Network Rail’s expenditure can be found in its regulatory accounts, which are available on its website: http://www.networkrail.co.uk