£4.5m funding for decarbonisation of local roads

Funding for the next phase of the Centre of Excellence for Decarbonising Roads has been provided by the Department for Transport (DfT) and the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning and Transport (ADEPT).

The £4.5m cash pot has been awarded to North Lanarkshire Council and their strategic delivery partner, Amey, to create the Centre of Excellence (CofE) model as part of Live Labs 2 – a three-year, £30m roads decarbonisation programme.

As part of the work, the Centre will break down siloed working practices, review, and trial leading innovation, and bring the industry together to tackle challenges facing the UK roads sector on the pathway to net zero.

Amey and North Lanarkshire Council will now work together with Live Labs 2 project partners – Transport for the West Midlands and Colas – to achieve the objectives for the CofE programme. Drawing on a network of national and international partners, the programme will identify leading road materials innovations, and enable a process to share and disseminate learnings at pace.  

Live Labs 2 includes seven projects, grouped by four interconnected themes, led by local authorities working alongside commercial and academic partners. Each project is testing new solutions to decarbonise construction, maintenance and decommissioning of the local highway network.

Giles Perkins, Live Labs 2 Programme Director said: “With billions being invested annually in local highways, activity across our seven Live Labs will demonstrate new solutions and techniques while measuring the carbon benefits and sharing information across industry.”  

Highways Sector Director at Amey, Andy Denman said: “The industry as a whole has a plethora of low carbon solutions. The challenge for local authorities is deciphering the potential impact, quality of the material and evaluating whole life carbon to filter out the high quantity of the proposed solutions. 

“This will help accelerate the adoption of material innovations across the sector, giving local authorities the confidence to adopt sustained decarbonisation solutions that the industry desperately needs, whilst also improving efficiencies and costs.” 

Councillor Kenneth Stevenson, Convener of the Communities Committee at North Lanarkshire Council, said: “As a council, we are well placed to drive and influence a change in behaviour. I believe we have assembled an excellent network here and across Scotland which will enable the radical shifts required.” 

Image from Shutterstock

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