Climate-related disruption is becoming increasingly frequent and severe, placing growing pressure on highway networks, local communities and already stretched local authority resources. In response, CIHT and Local Partnerships have collaborated with practitioners from across the sector to develop a suite of guidance designed to help authorities move from reacting to events towards a more proactive and resilient approach to managing climate risk.

The webinar will provide an overview of the guidance suite which includes:

• Highways Strategic Adaptation and Resilience Guidance
• Operational Framework Guidance
• Hazard-specific Operational Response Checklists

Authors Andrew Crudgington (CIHT Climate Change Associate) and Jon Munslow (Viasulis) will introduce the guidance, explain how the different documents fit together and discuss the key principles that underpin the approach. Helen Morrison (Department for Transport) will introduce the DfT’s Transport Hazard Summaries and Rachel Toresen-Owuor (Local Partnerships) will explain how the new materials fits with wider support and guidance available to the sector.  

This will be followed by a panel discussion with senior professionals, including immediate CIHT Past President Mitesh Solanki, exploring how the guidance can support authorities respond more effectively to the challenges of a changing climate, what barriers to implementation remain, and how the highways sector can work together to further develop it approach to climate resilience

The event also marks the beginning of a wider programme of engagement to support implementation and continuous improvement of the guidance. Participants will be invited to contribute views on future priorities, including further guidance development, training, tools and case studies.

Learning Outcomes

• Understand the structure and purpose of the new climate hazards guidance suite, and their relationship to the DfT Transport Hazards Summaries and other support available to the sector
• Explore how Local Highways Authorities can strengthen adaptation, preparedness and response arrangements
• Learn about emerging practice from across the highways sector

Who is this event for?

This event will be relevant to anyone involved in planning, managing or responding to climate-related disruption on the highway network, including:

• Heads of Service and senior leaders
• Asset management professionals
• Network and operations managers
• Emergency planning and resilience practitioner
• Highways engineers and service managers
• Contractors and supply chain partners
• Transport planners and policy professionals

Speaker details 

Justin Ward (chair)

Andrew Crudgington

Andrew has been CIHT Climate Change Associate since 2021 and was previously Director of Policy at the Institution of Civil Engineers. He is leading the work on CIHT's forthcoming guidance for Local Highways Authorities on responding to disruption caused by climate events

Helen Morrison

Department for Transport 

Jon Munslow

Jon Munslow has more than 37 years’ experience in highways, transportation, asset management and winter service, from front-line local government delivery through to national sector leadership. Founder of Viasulis Ltd Jon supports Local Highways Authorities and the highways supply chain in achieving better local roads, value for money and climate resilience.

He is Chair of the NHT Network, a Past President of the Local Government Technical Advisers Group, and a member of the UKRLG Climate Adaptation, Biodiversity and Climate Resilience Board. He also represents the UK through PIARC, where his focus is building climate resilience in road networks. Jon has led on several innovative sector tools that help Highways

Authorities meet the challenges of networks affected by severe weather and geohazards.
Jon’s work focuses on making resilience and adaptation guidance practical, usable and grounded in the real pressures faced by highway authorities before, during and after severe weather events.

Rachel Toresen-Owuor

As Senior Director, Rachel is responsible for work within Local Partnerships’ Environment practice area, leading and developing our climate adaptation and resilience support offers and delivering a wide range of services from carbon accounting to corporate retrofit and place-based delivery. Rachel led the development of the Climate Adaptation Toolkits for Local Authorities and Welsh Government and the development of the climate resilience support to local authorities and Welsh Government.  

Rachel has supported the development of supporting research for the Climate Change Committee's Fourth Independent Assessment of Climate Risk (CCRA4) and is a member of the Local Adaptation Advisory Panel. Rachel holds an MSc in Climate Change and Sustainable Development and has nine years Local Authority experience, where she led on sustainability, carbon and energy management, utilities procurement and climate and energy strategy development as well as embedding carbon reporting and monitoring into wider organisational processes.    

Panel discussion participants 

Mitesh Solanki 

Mitesh was elected President of CIHT in June 2025.

Mitesh is the Managing Director of Ringway Highways Services business that offers maintenance, improvements and whole life asset management services. He values relationships that enables customer satisfaction to be realised in an ever-changing environment. He has worked in this sector for 30 years and would encourage others to join as well as it caters for a wide variety of skill sets.

Senior representatives from Local Highways Authorities (to be confirmed)

Andrew Crudgington

Jon Munslow

Rachel Torsen-Owuor

Mitesh Solanki