As Highway England completes the transition into a new structure, Surveyor’s Highway Management conference, taking place September 23rd and 24th will bring together the whole of the industry to discuss the best way forward for maintaining and developing the UK road network. The conference’s keynote speaker, David Brewer, executive director of delivery and development at Highways England talks to Adrian Tatum about development of the strategic network over the next few years.
How does Highways England propose to continue its work around collaboration with the whole highways supply chain?
‘Collaboration with all of the supply chain will be key to us delivering safer, more freeflowing roads in England. We already work closely with our suppliers across the country and we will look to build on this over the next five years.
'Earlier this year we established our Engagement Council where we and around 80 of our partners in the supply chain will meet twice a year to share best practice and drive collaboration across the highways sector. As part of this, there are working groups dedicated to specific priority areas such as productivity and performance and building capability and skills. We are confident that this will help us grow and develop ourselves and our supply chain as we deliver record investment in our major roads.’
How do you plan to work more closely with local authorities and what will the benefits be for both parties and also the road user?
‘We work closely with local authorities across the country on economic development, route planning and responses to incidents and severe weather. Over the coming months and years, we will be looking to take a more collaborative approach on all of these issues so that we can do more for our shared customer: those who use and live near our roads.
'An example of this is in the north west where we have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Transport for Greater Manchester. This is a formal document that sets out how we will work with TfGM, as well as the local authorities in Greater Manchester and Greater Manchester Police, on priorities such as incident management, the environment, and short to longer term improvements to all roads. This benefits everyone: it means that we and our partners can provide a better, more joined up service to our customers.’
Can you outline your main plans for the strategic road network over the next few years?
‘Highways England will deliver the £15bn of investment in English motorways and major A roads set out in the government’s Road Investment strategy, with £11bn of capital funding committed between 2015 and 2020; this is investment in strategic roads at a scale not seen in a generation. The improvements include over 400 miles of extra capacity by creating a spine of smart motorways and major upgrades like the A14 Cambridge to Huntington, the A63 in Hull and the A38 in Derby. Maintaining our major roads is also key.
'England’s strategic roads are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week and are relied on by communities and businesses across the country. Our ambition over the next five years is to ensure our major roads are more dependable and durable, requiring less time and money to maintain. As part of this, over the next year we will be resurfacing 1,200 lane miles of road, replacing over 3,600 new lighting columns and maintaining or improving technology at 375 locations.’
How ‘smart’ can we make smart motorways?
‘As technology develops and moves forward over the next 10 to 20 years it is anticipated that the type of smart motorways we deliver will change. We will see less infrastructure on our motorways and a move away from digital road signage to in-car technology that takes information from data linked directly to what’s happening on the network.
'Our future, as a programme and a team, is about embracing this change and being open to the opportunities and challenges it presents. It will provide us with the chance to be involved in future projects that are currently being developed and be at the forefront of what we do as a business, shaping how future generations will use our network.’
Beyond all the above, what plans does HE have to develop the road network over the five years?
‘Looking in the longer term, work will begin during the next five years develop solutions for six long-standing congestion hot spots in the country. This includes investigating the viability of a Trans Pennine tunnel between Manchester and Sheffield, creating up to 35 miles of dual carriageway on the A303, A30 and A358 in the south west and upgrading the A1 near and north of Newcastle.’
Can we ever eliminate congestion or should we be focusing on trying to manage it as effectively as possible?
‘Our customers want less congested roads to enable swift, safe, comfortable and informed travel and our five year plan of modernisation will help us to meet their needs. Traffic on our roads has increased steadily over the last five years and is expected to continue over the next 10 to 25 years.
‘Our role is to ensure that we can facilitate journeys by providing better more modern roads, such as smart motorways, and better services, by clearly incidents faster. This will help to tackle congestion now and in the long term which will support economic growth.’
