M27 smart motorway works set to carry on as Grant Shapps warns unsafe roads 'can't continue'

The roll-out of such projects, including on the M27, is being subject to a ‘stocktake’ by the Department of Transport.

Transport secretary Grant Shapps has warned unsafe smart motorway schemes 'can't continue’.

It comes as BBC Panorama revealed 38 people have died in five years on smart motorways.

Today Highways England confirmed to The News that work on the £244m M27 scheme, running between junctions 4 and 11, will continue.

Campaigners have long warned against replacing hard shoulders with live traffic lanes. The M20 in Kent is due to open in March with all lanes open to traffic.

Mr Shapps responded to an MP’s concerns in the House of Commons and said: ‘The stretch of the M20 and all other stretches that are currently being worked on will not be opened until we have the outcome of the stock take.’

He added: ‘The question is: are smart motorways less safe than the rest of the motorway network?" he said. ‘

We must make them at least as safe, if not safer. Otherwise they can't continue.'

This month highways bosses are set to switch traffic management from the central reservation to verges between junctions 5 and 8.

A Highways England spokesman said: ‘The transport secretary has asked the Department for Transport to carry out, at pace, an evidence stocktake to gather the facts about smart motorway safety.

‘We are committed to safety and are supporting the department in its work on this.’

Former Hampshire Police Federation chairman John Apter, who now represents police in England and Wales, said: ‘They are death traps, simple as that. They are so inherently dangerous.’