£30m Government funding to decarbonise UK highways

Future roads could be built using asphalt made from grass cuttings and ‘carbon capturing’ cement, after £30 million Government funding was awarded to seven net zero projects.  

The seven successful projects spread across the UK and have been awarded funding through the Live Labs 2: Decarbonising Local Roads competition.

Projects will allow local highways authorities to develop and use new technologies to reduce emissions, improve regional connectivity and move to net-zero local roads.

Cutting emissions

Winning projects include cutting carbon emissions from streetlights to producing asphalt made from green waste like grass cuttings.

The 30 million fund will allow changes to the design, construction and maintenance of typical UK highway construction. In addition, plans include developing a first-of-its-kind system approach to creating a net carbon negative model.

Roads minister Richard Holden said: “The UK is a world leader in technology and innovation, and we must use that strength to both drive decarbonisation and the next generation of high-tech jobs that go alongside it.

“We are supporting this vital agenda to help level-up through £30m funding for ground-breaking projects and boosting regional connections to support growth.

“The Government is determined to create good, well-paid jobs - via innovation and investment across the UK - as we accelerate the road to net zero.”

Midlands Success

Successful bids include Highways CO2llaboration Centre for materials decarbonisation, Transport for West Midlands.

This project looks at supporting upskilling and developing a team in the West Midlands to decarbonise highways via two initiatives. These include a ‘Highways CO2llaboration Centre’, and demonstrator sites showcasing and monitoring innovative decarbonised highway materials.

The programme follows the previous Live Labs 1. This was a £22.9m innovation programme that focused on adoption of digital technology across the local roads sector in England.

Themes

Live Labs 2 is designed to ensure innovations are shared across the whole of the UK. In addition, bidders were encouraged to create partnerships across the public and private sector, and academia. As such, the winning projects will be working together across 4 interconnected themes, including:

» A green carbon laboratory: examining the role that non-operational highways ‘green’ assets can play in decarbonising highway operations. For example, using biomass from green waste to create alternative fuels and asphalt additives

» A future lighting testbed: researching the future of lighting for local roads to determine what is needed in the future and how they can be further decarbonised

» A UK centre of excellence for materials: providing a centralised hub for research and innovation that would help test construction materials and their use

» Corridor and place-based decarbonisation: working to create decarbonisation across specific, wider regions and corridors covering both urban and rural areas

Live Labs 2 is funded by the Department of Transport (DfT). It is organised by The Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport (ADEPT), which represents ‘directors of place’. They are responsible for providing day-to-day services, such as local highways, as well as strategic long-term delivery.

Impact

Mark Kemp, President of ADEPT, said:

“Tackling the carbon impact of our highways’ infrastructure is critical to our path to net zero but hard to address, so I am pleased that bidding was so competitive. Live Labs 2 has a huge ambition – to fundamentally change how we embed decarbonisation into our decision-making and to share our learning with the wider sector to enable behaviour change.

"Each project will bring local authority led innovation and a collaborative approach to create a long-lasting transformation of business as usual.  I am looking forward to the opportunity to learn from our successful bidders and taking that into my own organisation”.

Roads minister Richard Holden said:

“The UK is a world leader in technology and innovation, and we must use that strength to both drive decarbonisation and the next generation of high-tech jobs that go alongside it.

“We are supporting this vital agenda to help level-up through £30m funding for ground-breaking projects and boosting regional connections to support growth.

“The Government is determined to create good, well-paid jobs - via innovation and investment across the UK - as we accelerate the road to net zero.”