This is the best summary I could come up with:

National Highways is the body that oversees road building in England, and it is being allowed “to mark its own homework” by ministers who have opted out of reviewing the economic case for new projects, say campaigners.

There is now a danger, they argue, that National Highways is pushing ahead “behind a wall of secrecy” with schemes that suit the narrow interests of road builders without taking into account more recent environmental and economic concerns.

Some of the most expensive schemes are under the control of officials at the Department for Transport (DfT), but new roads, such as the £230m widening of the A30 near Truro, in Cornwall, will be reviewed by National Highways and could be completed without complying with the latest environmental rules.

Transport Action Network (Tan) said freedom of information requests found that the DfT was not scrutinising the final business case (FBC) of schemes valued below £500m, which meant planning consent on more than a dozen projects could given without ministerial scrutiny of the implications for the environment.

“Planning consent is granted before a FBC is developed – ie before the full and final economic case for the scheme has been scrutinised and approved,” the Tan said in a complaint letter to the National Audit Office.

Lush said Tan had met a “brick wall of silence” while researching the basis for decisions, and she wanted the National Audit Office should investigate how schemes were being taken forward without ministers being involved.

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