National Highways, formerly the Highways Agency and later Highways England, is a
government-owned company
A state-owned enterprise (SOE) is a government entity which is established or nationalised by the ''national government'' or ''provincial government'' by an executive order or an act of legislation in order to earn profit for the government ...
charged with operating, maintaining and improving
motorways and major A roads in
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
.
It also sets highways standards used by all four UK administrations, through the
Design Manual for Roads and Bridges
The Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) is a series of 15 volumes that provide standards, advice notes and other documents relating to the design, assessment and operation of trunk roads, including motorways in the United Kingdom, and ...
. Within England, it operates information services through the provision of on-road signage and its Traffic England website, provides
traffic officers to deal with incidents on its network, and manages the delivery of improvement schemes to the network.
Founded as an
executive agency
An executive agency is a part of a government department that is treated as managerially and budgetarily separate, to carry out some part of the executive functions of the United Kingdom government, Scottish Government, Welsh Government or N ...
, it was converted into a government-owned company, Highways England, on 1 April 2015. As part of this transition, the
UK government
ga, Rialtas a Shoilse gd, Riaghaltas a Mhòrachd
, image = HM Government logo.svg
, image_size = 220px
, image2 = Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom (HM Government).svg
, image_size2 = 180px
, caption = Royal Arms
, date_est ...
set out its vision for the future of the English strategic road network in its Road Investment Strategy. A second Road Investment Strategy was published in March 2020, with the company set to invest £27 billion between 2020 and 2025 to improve the network as described in the strategy. It was renamed to its current name on 19 August 2021.
History
The Highways Agency was created as an executive agency of the
Department for Transport on 30 March 1994.
As part of the Department for Transport's 2010
Spending Review
A spending review, or occasionally a comprehensive spending review, is a governmental process in the United Kingdom carried out by HM Treasury to set firm expenditure limits and, through public service agreements, define the key improvements that t ...
settlement, Alan Cook was appointed to lead an independent review of the government's approach to the strategic road network. It recognised that the Highways Agency was closer to central government than other infrastructure operators, resulting in a lack of a strategic vision and certainty of funding due to the wider policy environment in which it operated, as well as the limited pressure to drive efficiencies compared to that faced by regulated sectors. After an announcement on 27 June 2013 by
Danny Alexander
Sir Daniel Grian Alexander (born 15 May 1972) is a former politician who was Chief Secretary to the Treasury between 2010 and 2015. He was the Member of Parliament (MP) for the Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey constituency from 2005 u ...
,
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
The chief secretary to the Treasury is a ministerial office in the government of the United Kingdom. The office is the second most senior in the Treasury, after the chancellor of the Exchequer. The office was created in 1961, to share the burde ...
, it became a government-owned company with the name Highways England on 1 April 2015.
Jim O'Sullivan became Chief Executive on 1 July 2015, replacing Graham Dalton.
In 2020, they launched an advertising campaign using the song "
Go West" by
The Village People
''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...
and covered by
The Pet Shop Boys
The Pet Shop Boys are an English synth-pop duo formed in London in 1981. Consisting of primary vocalist Neil Tennant and keyboardist Chris Lowe, they have sold more than 50 million records worldwide, and were listed as the most successful duo ...
. They changed the lyrics to Go Left, encouraging people to stop on the left hand side of the
motorway
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...
.
On 19 August 2021, it was announced that Highways England would be rebranding to National Highways, a move coinciding with the permanent appointment of Nick Harris as CEO, after taking over as interim CEO from Jim O’Sullivan in February 2021.
It was suggested that the 'national' in the new name refers to the fact that the company is responsible for setting highways standards for the whole of the UK,
through the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, even though decisions on the building and maintenance of roads outside of England are devolved to the governments in
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
,
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
and
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
.
The renaming has met with some criticism, being the third name for the agency in six years, and with reports that 'Highways Agency' is colloquially used more than either newer name.
The name has also attracted criticism from the other countries of the UK, particularly in
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
where the use of 'national' has been criticised despite transport being devolved to Wales.
Responsibilities
National Highways is responsible for operating, maintaining and improving the strategic road network (SRN). The SRN (the motorways and major A roads in England) comprises over 4,000 miles of road and includes various structures such as bridges, tunnels, drainage systems and technology assets including variable message signs and cabling. The SRN includes only around 2% of the total road length in England, but it carries around a third of all its motor vehicle traffic.
National Highways is responsible for the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) providing the standards, advice notes and other documents relating to the design, assessment and operation of
trunk roads, including
motorways
A controlled-access highway is a type of highway that has been designed for high-speed vehicular traffic, with all traffic flow—ingress and egress—regulated. Common English terms are freeway, motorway and expressway. Other similar terms i ...
in the
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
. The manual is produced by National Highways in conjunction with the
devolved governments of
Wales
Wales ( cy, Cymru ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is bordered by England to the east, the Irish Sea to the north and west, the Celtic Sea to the south west and the Bristol Channel to the south. It had a population in ...
,
Scotland
Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...
and
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland ( ga, Tuaisceart Éireann ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Norlin Airlann) is a part of the United Kingdom, situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, that is variously described as a country, province or region. Nort ...
. The manual is also used in some parts of the
Commonwealth. The authority also produces the Manual of Contract Documents for Highway Works (MCHW), and Asset Maintenance and Operation Requirements (AMOR) which supersedes the Network Maintenance Manual and Routine and Winter Service Codes, and its predecessor the Trunk Road Maintenance Manual.
Operating the network
National Highways' operations are split into areas
which are loosely based on the
regions of England. These regions are subdivided into nine operational areas as well as eleven areas and routes which are managed by
DBFO (Design-Build-Finance-Operate) companies.
Each area is managed and maintained by an area team (the Managing Agent; MA) and a contractor (the Managing Agent Contractor; MAC). The
M6 Toll
The M6 Toll, referred to on signs as the Midland Expressway (originally named the Birmingham Northern Relief Road or BNRR), and stylised as M6toll, connects M6 Junction 3a at the Coleshill Interchange to M6 Junction 11A at Wolverhampton with ...
is a
PFI concession which is also part of the strategic road network.
Network management map
Improving the network
In common with the regulated sectors, National Highways works to fixed
funding
Funding is the act of providing resources to finance a need, program, or project. While this is usually in the form of money, it can also take the form of effort or time from an organization or company. Generally, this word is used when a firm use ...
periods called Road Periods. Each Road Period is currently five years in length, and a particular Road Investment Strategy (RIS) will broadly align with this. Before a new Road Period starts, National Highways will provide the
Secretary of State for Transport with an SRN Initial Report, including an assessment of the state of the SRN, maintenance and enhancement priorities, and future development needs. Following this, the
government
A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state.
In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is ...
produces a draft RIS setting out the high-level outputs that National Highways will need to deliver within the corresponding Road Period, alongside the proposed funding. National Highways will then respond with a Strategic Business Plan detailing its plans for delivering the RIS. This is reviewed by the
Highways Monitor to assess whether the proposed requirements are deliverable with the proposed financial resources and sufficiently challenging. After the Strategic Business Plan and RIS are finalised, National Highways must deliver the agreed outputs and will be monitored on its progress by the Highways Monitor.
Development of the SRN is achieved through National Highways' capital investment programme, currently funded entirely by government through
grant-in-aid
A grant-in-aid is money coming from a central government for a specific project. Such funding is usually used when the government and the legislature decide that the recipient should be publicly funded but operate with reasonable independence ...
and set out in the first Road Investment Strategy. For Road Period 1 (2015–20), Highways England invested around £15 billion in its network, with additional funding to address other local challenges in proximity of the SRN relating to the environment; air quality; cycling, safety and integration; and growth and housing.
For Road Period 2 (2020-25), National Highways will invest over £27 billion in its network, of which £14 billion is for road enhancements. The rest is for operating, maintaining and renewing its roads, and further funding to address challenges on the environment and wellbeing; users and communities; innovation and modernisation; and safety and congestion. As of this Road Period, National Highways' activities will, at least in part, be funded by
vehicle excise duty Vehicle Excise Duty (VED; also known as "vehicle tax", "car tax", and more controversially as " road tax", and formerly as a "tax disc") is an annual tax that is levied as an excise duty and which must be paid for most types of powered vehicles whi ...
.
Organisation
Head office
The company head office is in Bridge House, on a one-way gyratory in
Guildford,
Surrey. Previously its head office was in
Dorking, Surrey. In 2014 the agency signed a ten-year lease with the owner of the Guildford facility.
National Traffic Information Service (NTIS)
Sopra Steria operates the National Traffic Information Service (NTIS) on behalf of Highways England. NTIS is the information hub of England's strategic road network.
The service is based at
Quinton, Birmingham and is responsible for providing accurate, historical, real-time and predictive traffic and incident information to businesses, the travelling public and National Highways' operations.
It collects real-time traffic information from over 10,000 fixed sites on the motorway and all-purpose trunk road network from
MIDAS
Midas (; grc-gre, Μίδας) was the name of a king in Phrygia with whom several myths became associated, as well as two later members of the Phrygian royal house.
The most famous King Midas is popularly remembered in Greek mythology for his ...
and Traffic Monitoring Unit (TMU) electronic loops in the road surface and automatic number plate recognition (ANPR) cameras at the roadside. Additionally it uses anonymous floating vehicle traffic data (FVD) from vehicles to supplement the fixed traffic monitoring sites. NTIS also has access to nearly 2,000
CCTV cameras,
300 weather stations, 4,600 roadside electronic signs, 16,000 roadside electronic matrix signals and incident data from over 250 operational partners including the
police
The police are a constituted body of persons empowered by a state, with the aim to enforce the law, to ensure the safety, health and possessions of citizens, and to prevent crime and civil disorder. Their lawful powers include arrest and th ...
and
local authorities
Local government is a generic term for the lowest tiers of public administration within a particular sovereign state. This particular usage of the word government refers specifically to a level of administration that is both geographically-loca ...
.
It processes this data to create useful intelligence for operational decision making and dissemination of current and predictive information to the public using the 4,600 roadside
variable-message signs
A variable- (also changeable-, electronic-, or dynamic-) message sign, often abbreviated VMS, CMS, or DMS, and in the UK known as a matrix sign,
is an electronic traffic sign often used on roadways to give travelers information about special ...
,
the Highways England website (including a mobile version), social media channels such as Twitter and the telephone-based Highways England customer contact centre
as well as distributing information to the media and businesses through a number of data feeds.
These feeds are widely used by organisations such as the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
and local newspaper websites for their own traffic information. Services such as Google Maps and sat-nav operators also use National Highways' data for their traffic information.
The motorway network is divided into "Areas". They are contracts that are awarded by the
. The Area Teams work alongside the National Highways Traffic Officer Service – providing incident support, emergency traffic management and infrastructure maintenance. They are responsible for the management and operation of the roads in their area. In 2009,
has been deployed to assist area teams to manage their specialist winter maintenance vehicles during the cold snap.
National Highways employs uniformed traffic officers; on-road and control room, as well as specialist staff for work in engineering, surveying, accountancy, and administration. There is a graduate entry scheme, with general entry and specialist engineering entry options. For the
each team is supervised by a team manager, one of between six and eight such managers generally working together, to ensure 24-hour management cover.
.
The National Highways Board is the primary governance arm of the company and is accountable to the Secretary of State for Transport. The Board delegate responsibility of the day-to-day running of the company to the Chief Executive who, as the Accounting Officer, is accountable to the Permanent Secretary of the Department for Transport, as the Principal Accounting Officer, for the stewardship of public funds. The Principal Accounting Officer and Secretary of State for Transport are both ultimately accountable to
for the activities and performance of National Highways.
(ORR) as the monitor for National Highways. ORR is responsible for monitoring and enforcing the performance and efficiency of National Highways, and advising the Secretary of State for Transport on its compliance against the Road Investment Strategy and Licence. The Act also established
(previously Passenger Focus) as its watchdog with the purpose of promoting and protecting the interests of users of the strategic road network.
Traffic England is a website that gives information about the latest traffic conditions as well as details of any roadworks or events that may cause congestion.
By selecting current motorway information users can see the average speed between individual motorway junctions, what is being displayed on all the
.
The website is run by National Highways' National Traffic Information Service.
is a partnership between National Highways, the Association of Chief Police Officers (
), the breakdown/recovery industry and other road service providers. The Survive Group has been established to improve the safety of those who work on the road network and the travelling public and is also dedicated to the promotion of driving safety. The name Survive comes from Safe Use of Roadside Verges in Vehicular Emergencies.
The Survive Group website holds information on the Survive Group membership details and activities being undertaken by the working groups. It also supplies advice on how to drive safely in a wide range of driving conditions, advice on planning journeys. Survive also provides publications and new guidance produced by the Survive members plus news on new initiatives and forthcoming road safety events.
.
was filled with 1,600 tonnes of aggregate and concrete by Highways England, ostensibly for what HRE managers considered safety reasons. The bridge spanned a five-mile section of trackbed which local rail enthusiasts hoped to restore, linking the Eden Valley and Stainmore railways to create an 11-mile tourist line between
.
Accused of 'vandalism', Highways England were forced to apply for retrospective planning permission,
and government intervention to pause National Highways plans to infill dozens of other Victorian bridges across England.
the council's planning committee unanimously refused retrospective planning permission on 16 June 2022.
Restoration of the Musgrave bridge to its former condition would cost an £431,000, in addition to the £124,000 spent on the initial infilling work.
After the Great Musgrave outcry, National Highways developed a new way to assess the abandoned rail bridges and tunnels it controls, with decisions reviewed in collaboration with experts from heritage, environmental and active travel sectors. The stakeholder advisory forum includes the Department for Transport,
and ADEPT.
*
*
* – live traffic information from the HA including delays, roadworks, roadside message signs