Draft Full Business Case for A303 Stonehenge
Case reference EIR2024/01702
Received 4 December 2024
Published 6 February 2025
Request
I would like to request that you publish the unredacted draft Full Business Case for the A303 Stonehenge scheme on your website.
Response
Information withheld
I would therefore like to request that you publish the unredacted draft Full Business Case for the A303 Stonehenge scheme on your website.
This information has been withheld under exception in Regulation 12(4)(d) - Material in the course of completion, unfinished documents, and incomplete data of the Environmental Information Regulations 2004.
This is because the draft Full Business Case (FBC) is material in the course of completion and therefore an unfinished document. Releasing it at this point will present a misleading and incomplete picture of the scheme and the impact it will have.
In applying this exemption, we have had to balance the public interest in withholding the information against the public interest in disclosure. The key public interest factors for and against disclosure are attached.
Advice and Assistance
The draft FBC was approved in principle by the Department for Transport on 2nd October 2023 subject to completing the entire governance process.
As the next step in the governance process, the draft FBC was approved with conditions, one of which was the conclusion of all legal challenges, by the Major Project Review Group (MPRG) on 11th December 2023. MPRG is managed for HM Treasury (HMT) by the Infrastructure and Projects Authority (IPA).
On completion of the legal proceedings the draft FBC will be updated by National Highways and submitted to DfT for final approval .
We are still awaiting the outcome of the legal challenge against the Secretary of State's decision to grant the Development Consent Order. Although the application for permission to appeal made to the Court of Appeal was refused on 16 October 2024, a further application for permission to appeal to the Supreme Court was submitted on 11 November 2024.
It is difficult to estimate the completion for the legal proceedings but at this stage we suspect it could take approximately 4 months before we know whether the Supreme Court application is granted.
You are welcome to make a request for either the draft FBC or the completed draft FBC or both at a later date.
Please note the National Highways Annual report and accounts 2024 (For the financial year ended 31 March 2024) incorrectly states that the 'Full Business Case' for the A303 Stonehenge (Amesbury to Berwick Down) was approved by the National Highways Investment Committee in 2024.
The report should instead refer to the 'conditional/draft FBC being approved' as a FBC was approved at the DfT Investment, Portfolio & Delivery Committee, to request full funding from Her Majesty's Treasury but this was subject to the conclusion of the legal proceedings.
Documents
This is National Highways' response to a freedom of information (FOI) or environmental information regulations (EIR) request.
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