Major changes to the way strategic highways in England will be managed and operated have been revealed in a Department for Transport ‘Action for Roads’ reform paper.

The Highways Agency will be turned into a publicly owned company and new legislation will be introduced next year to provide the Agency with legal powers.

Roads investment will be guaranteed until 2021 and a new National Policy Statement for strategic roads is to be drafted later this year.

Major A roads will be treated as ‘expressways’ to bring them more into line with motorways, 80% of the strategic road network will be resurfaced by 2020 and £500M is to made available to develop new ultra low emission vehicles.

CIHT applauded the creation of longer term funding certainty for maintenance and enhancement of England’s strategic road network. It also welcomed an announcement that any future Government would have to go through a statutory process to change the funding commitment.

The Civil Engineering Contractors Association said: “We have long argued that contractors can only provide maximum efficiency where they have good visibility of their forward programme of work. Too often the roads sector has suffered from boom and bust conditions that are hugely damaging to smooth delivery of projects. These proposals offer the potential to resolve this issue once and for all.”

Photo: Highways Agency

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