Question to the Department for Transport:

To ask the Secretary of State for Transport, whether her Department permits local highway authorities to seek alternative funding or delivery mechanisms for critical bridge infrastructure projects where concurrent delivery through the Structures Fund would risk significant disruption to strategic transport routes.

Local highway authorities are not required to utilise the Structures Fund for bridge infrastructure schemes. The Fund is only for those structures where repair or replacement is unaffordable from the local highway authority’s existing budgets and which require repair or replacement now or are likely to before 31 March 2030.