Quango behind controversial smart motorways blows £400,000 on name change
- Highways England is spending £400,000 to rebrand as National Highways
- It wants to shed its toxic image following the criticism of smart motorways
- It is the third name change in six years for the former Highways Agency
- The six-figure sum of taxpayers’ cash would be enough to fill 6,300 potholes
The Government agency behind smart motorways is squandering more than £400,000 of taxpayers’ cash on changing its name – enough to fill 6,300 potholes.
The Daily Mail used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that Highways England is spending the six-figure sum to rebrand as National Highways.
It wants to shed its toxic image following criticism of smart motorways, which have been blamed for extra road deaths.
It is the third name change in six years for the former Highways Agency.
The Government agency behind smart motorways is squandering more than £400,000 of taxpayers’ cash on changing its name (pictured: M1 smart motorway in West Yorkshire)
Jack Cousens, of the AA, said: ‘Spending this much on an unnecessary rebrand seems bizarre at best and pointless at worst.’
Prime Minister Liz Truss has pledged to axe smart motorways.
National Highways said the rebrand was being ‘managed in-house’ and it was ‘keeping the cost to the taxpayer at the forefront of our mind’.
It comes after the Mail revealed how National Highways splashed more than £750,000 on a glitzy smart motorways safety video earlier this year.
The slick clip, which featured Gadget Show presenters Ortis Deley and Suzi Perry, was branded ‘patronising propaganda’ by critics as it didn’t explain the dangers of removing the hard shoulder.
About 40 per cent of breakdowns on smart motorways with the hard shoulder permanently removed happen in a live lane due to a lack of emergency laybys.
The Daily Mail used the Freedom of Information Act to discover that Highways England is spending the six-figure sum to rebrand as National Highways (image: a section of smart motorway on the M1 near Wakefield)
The figures, obtained by the Mail under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal that the roads agency will splash up to £300,000 on updating its official website and all employees’ email addresses to reflect the name change.
It will shell out another £70,000 on replacing public-facing ‘Highways England’ signs across the quango’s estate and on purchasing new company seals.
Another £25,000 will be spent on updating signs on major projects already underway.
Nearly £4,000 has already been spent on registering the name change with The Intellectual Property Office and Companies House.
On average it costs £63 to fill a pothole in England and Wales, meaning the sum could pay for around 6,350 potholes to be fixed.
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