The Highways Sector Council was formally launched this week after its inception last autumn. Created to give a unified voice to the industry, support greater partnership with central and local government and drive innovation and collaboration, the Council has responded quickly to the current pandemic.

A new Covid-19 focus working group is working closely with the Department for Transport to collate information and provide guidance on the impacts of Coronavirus, particularly within local highways, and build a programme for recovery.

“The Council was established to transform how the highways sector delivers,” said its chair Leon Daniels, formerly of Transport for London and now an independent consultant.

“In creating this powerful alliance, we want to drive through change by addressing the challenges we face as a sector including decarbonisation, new technologies, skills, investment and delivery models.

“Covid-19 hasn’t changed this commitment,” he emphasised, “but it has given a new urgency to our work, enabling us to work swiftly and collectively during this time of national crisis”.

To address the immediate impacts of Coronavirus, the Covid-19 group’s activity has included focus on developing guidance for the sector to operate safely within the current restrictions when working on local highways.

Given that some local roads programmes have been reduced or paused, the outputs of its work will also support the sector in bringing forward maintenance and capital projects, where it is safe and practical, to ensure roads remain fit for purpose.

CIHT chief executive Sue Percy said: “We are pleased to be a founding member of the Highways Sector Council. We are committed to working as part of the Council to support the transformation of the highways sector through coming together in partnership to help address some key challenges.

“An example of our current work is looking at how, as a sector, we can work safely under the current restrictions, providing input into what a post Covid-19 sector recovery might look like.”

A longer term priority for the Council beyond Covid-19 is to develop a collaborative approach to transform how the sector works in areas including people and skills, innovation, safety, the environment, value, investment and delivery models.

In addition to CIHT, Council members include the Association of Directors of Environment, Economy, Planning & Transport, Chartered Institute of Logistics & Transport, England’s Economic Heartland and Highways England.

Private sector members include AECOM, Amey, Atkins, Balfour Beatty, Costain, FM Conway, Eurovia Ringway, Jacobs, Kier, Leon Daniels & Associates, Mott MacDonald, Sir Robert McAlpine, Skanska and Tarmac.

Meanwhile, Council member Highways England published an interactive map last week showing planned investments on the strategic road network under the second Road Investment Strategy.

The map features schemes currently under construction across England as well as those committed to start building over the next five years, and a pipeline of proposed projects for the third spending period which would run from 2025 to 2030.

To view the map, visit maps.dft.gov.uk/road-investment-strategy-2

But lawyers acting for the Transport Action Network group yesterday asked the Department for Transport and Highways England to scrap their road plans in the interests of the environment, or face a court challenge.

The campaigners claim that RIS2 breaches climate and air quality laws. They are relying on the Court of Appeal’s decision in February which ruled that expansion of Heathrow airport was illegal in light of the UN Paris Agreement.

Transport Action Network director Chris Todd said: "Road transport is now the single biggest source of UK carbon emissions. How can the DfT claim to take climate change seriously when it is set to burn billions on the ‘largest ever roads programme’ to make things worse?”

(Photograph: Lincolnshire County Council)