Highways Agency

England's Motorway and Trunk Road Network

The Network

The Highways Agency is currently responsible for approximately 9,400 km of roads across England, carrying volumes of traffic ranging from 5,000 vehicles per day to over 200,000 vehicles per day. However, one outcome of the ITWP is that roughly 40% of the network (known as the 'non-core' network) is to be de-trunked, that is, passed back to local highways authority control. The HABAP therefore refers only to the remaining network, known as the 'core' network.

The Soft Estate

The soft estate is defined as the land within the highway boundaries that is not part of the carriageway. The Agency's soft estate extends across England, and currently represents approximately 30,000 hectares of land. It comprises a wide variety of habitats, and whilst much consists of narrow strips of grassland,scrub or woodland close to the carriageway, there are also more extensive areas of land within large interchanges or land acquired as a result of severance.

The estate also includes areas of other habitats, such as heathland, rock faces and wetlands. Highways land has to accommodate many, sometimes conflicting, uses, including those relating to engineering requirements, road safety, signage, traffic management, drainage, and the provision of mitigation for other environmental impacts, as well as measures relating specifically to biodiversity and nature conservation.

Increasingly, the soft estate is being acknowledged as holding areas of considerable value for biodiversity; this can be due to the presence of remnants of original habitats, the often low ecological value of adjacent land, its value as a wildlife corridor, and, in some cases, as a result of the applied management. Road verges can be of particular value if they comprise intrinsically valuable habitat which also abuts larger (sometimes protected or designated) areas of the same habitat type (such as SSSIs or County Wildlife Sites).

Conversely, roads (and their operation) can have significant negative effects on biodiversity. Among the potential negative effects on biodiversity are habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, barriers to species movements, road mortality of individual animals, changes to hydrology/drainage, pollution (of air, water and land resources), noise disturbance, and artificial lighting.

"improvement of the network can involve different types of work at anumber of geographical scales"

Maintenance, Operation and Improvement of the Network

The Agency directs the maintenance, operation and improvement of the network through a number of contractual arrangements.

Maintenance and operation of the network is currently carried out through management agreements with contractors in each of 20 areas. These contractors, known as Managing Agents (MAs), in turn use contractors, known as Term Maintenance Contractors (TMCs) to undertake work on the network. The MAs and TMCs are responsible for the day-to-day management and carrying out operations such as maintenance, inspections and improvements, including those of an environmental nature.

Currently a new type of contract is being put in place that combines the MA and TMC functions in a Managing Agent Contractor (MAC) contract. This will reduce the number of areas to 14 by July 2003.

The work of MAs and TMCs will in the future be guided by Route Management Strategies (RMSs) and Environmental Management Plans (EMPs) which will enable a more holistic and route-based approach to environmental issues, including biodiversity.

Improvement of the network can involve different types of work at a number of geographical scales. The work involved can for instance be related to safety, renewal of surfaces, improving communications systems, new drainage systems, new junctions, road widening and new roads to replace existing ones.

These improvement works are carried out by contractors, working to consultants employed by the Agency, on contracts created specifically for that work.

A further type of contract is Design, Build, Finance and Operate (DBFO), which is currently in place along six lengths of the network. In these contracts a company or consortium is responsible for designing, building, and subsequently operating and maintaining the road for a 30 year period.

All of these contracts require compliance with relevant UK environmental protection and assessment legislation and policy, DMRB and TRMM guidance, and the use of appropriate environmental best practice. The HABAP will become part of the guidance for these contracts.