The Highways Agency Family of Strategic Plans

Contents

The Highways Agency Family of Strategic Plans

Overview

The Highways Agency has a new role as the network operator for motorways and other trunk roads in England. On top of our traditional role of building and maintaining England's trunk roads, we now have a remit to actively influence and control how our roads are used so as to provide the best possible service to all users. We are no longer just a maintainer and builder of roads.

Our new role requires us to maintain, operate and improve our network. We work in partnership with other organisations, both in the public and the private sector, to help us deliver a better service to our customers.

We are preparing a series of Strategic Plans to explain our new role and what we will be doing in the next five to ten years to promote the Government's policies for sustainable development and help us deliver integrated transport solutions.

The first plan, on the Environment, was published in November 1999. The second, the Safety plan, was published in March 2000; others will follow during the year.

Actions and objectives set out in these Plans will be taken forward as we develop strategies for individual routes - Route Management Strategies - in consultation with users and others affected.

Overview

Background

The Government's White Paper, "A New Deal for Transport: Better for Everyone" recognised that traffic growth lies at the heart of the national traffic debate and that building new roads alone will not solve the problem of congestion.

The White Paper and the associated Roads Review, "A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England", changed the role of the Agency from one of a road builder and maintainer to that of a Network Operator and provided us with a new strategic aim:

"to contribute to sustainable development by maintaining, operating and improving the trunk road network in support of the Government's integrated transport and land use policies".

Ministers have identified Investment Areas, Investment Criteria and Key Objectives for the Agency in its management of England's core network of trunk roads, including motorways.

Three Investment Areas

Five Investment Criteria

Eight Key Objectives

background collage

Background

The Family of Strategic Plans

The Agency will produce a Strategic Plan for each of the Investment Areas and the Investment Criteria.

These Plans will link our work and planning to Ministerial policies and explain the Agency's new role and how we intend to meet our new objectives.

They will encourage innovation, ensure a consistent approach, and help spread best practice throughout the Agency.

The Plans will also provide a link into the new Regional Planning Conference and Regional Planning Guidance system.

Each Plan will consist of a statement setting out our objectives and the ways and means of delivering those objectives. Where the Agency may not be able to deliver these objectives in isolation, the plans will consider the need to develop partnerships.

Plans will cover a 5-10 year time frame, but will be reviewed as necessary during that period.

Although we are producing individual Strategic Plans, there are strong links between them and they will form a family of documents encompassing the whole of the Highways Agency's new network operator role.

Maintain

The White Paper has made maintenance the Agency's top priority. The Strategic Plan is concerned with maximising the efficiency of maintenance by keeping the network in a safe condition whilst minimising:

Operate

The Agency's new network operator role includes all that we do, but the Operate Strategic Plan is more specific. It deals with actively influencing and controlling how the network is used and the wider management of resources to meet customer needs, assist integration, and deliver an increased role for public transport.

The Plan will identify actions to help implement four inter-related and forward-looking themes identified in the White Paper:

Improve

The Government's Roads Review, "A New Deal for Trunk Roads in England" gave the Agency a programme to start 37 carefully-targeted schemes costing £1.4 billion on its core network within the next seven years.

The Plan will focus on the actions the Agency will take to implement this programme and consider our input to the development of any future major schemes that emerge via the new Regional Planning bodies.

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Safety

Safety is a high priority; the Agency makes an important contribution to road safety in England and is committed to contributing to the Government's 2010 targets for reducing road casualties.

The Plan identifies target user groups, establishes specific safety objectives for each group, and identifies a range of issues and actions to help achieve casualty reductions. It will ensure a consistent approach to safety across the network and improve the management and monitoring of our safety work.

Environment

The Plan, "Towards a balance with nature", published November 1999, demonstrates our ambition to do more than in the past. It includes action plans to assist biodiversity, to manage local air quality, noise, waste materials and water quality, and for landscape, townscape and heritage issues.

Economy

The Economy Plan is concerned with reducing overall travel costs and increasing journey time reliability, minimising construction and maintenance costs, and with supporting regeneration.

Much of the detail may be covered in other Strategic Plans and the Plan will act as a signpost to actions contained elsewhere.

Accessibility

This Plan takes as its basis the White Paper's definition of Accessibility: "Improving access to everyday facilities to those without a car and reducing community severance".

It is concerned with improving access, both to public transport and in general, for all non-motorised users.It will include action plans to assist pedestrians, cyclists, equestrians and vulnerable user groups including disabled people.

Integration

The Integration Strategic Plan is primarily concerned with broader policy issues. It will explain how the Agency will assist the implementation of Government policies to integrate all forms of transport and land use planning to develop a better and more efficient transport system.

The Plan will provide a link to other Plans that detail actions to assist the integration between different modes of transport

The Family of Strategic Plans

Links with Route Management Strategies

Route Management Strategies (RMS) will provide an important tool for implementing actions identified in the Strategic Plans.

These studies will involve stakeholders and the public and provide a consistent, open and integrated framework for identifying objectives, problems, and possible solutions for routes on our core network.

A ten-year management plan will outline the priorities for investment in each route.

Introduction is expected to begin in Summer 2000 and to be completed in 2003.

Links with Route Management Strategies

Links between Highways Agency Strategies

 Links between Highways Agency Strategies
Links between Highways Agency Strategies

Contact Points

The development of the Agency's Strategic Plans and the Route Management Strategies is the responsibility of the Network Customer Services Directorate's Network Strategy Team.

If you would like more information about the Agency's family of Strategic Plans please contact:
Ian Jones
Room 12/30,
St Christopher House
Tel 020 7921 4738
ian.jones@highways.gsi.gov.uk

For more information about the Agency's Route Management Strategies please contact:
Nigel Edwards
Room 13/30
St Christopher House
Tel 020 7921 4101
nigel.edwards@highways.gsi.gov.uk

Contact Points