Strategic
Business Plan
2020-2025

We need to keep our customers, people and suppliers safe, above all else.

During the second road period, we will work to prevent incidents from occurring. We will also focus on reducing incident severity through a package of activities to promote safer roads, safer people, safer vehicles and coordinated collision response. We will use our Safety and congestion fund to deliver targeted schemes across the country. We will also learn from other organisations and stakeholders about what works best, and collaborate with them to improve safety for all.

Road safety isn’t exclusive. It’s all well to reduce risks, but the more organisations who share good practice, the better. National Highways is putting its weight behind Driving for Better Business and getting it into the public consciousness.

Measuring success

We want to help people and businesses have safe, reliable and efficient journeys.

We will start work on government’s priority schemes, and invest in improvements where they are most needed, regionally and nationally. We will respond to the requirements of our customers, stakeholders and the businesses that rely on our network, and collaborate with partners such as sub-national transport bodies.

Our Safety and congestion fund will improve traffic flow and journey reliability at a local level. And our traffic officers and control centre employees will improve customers’ journeys by tackling and clearing incidents quickly and safely.

National Highways shows a great desire to provide information and real-time updates, such as estimated travelling time to Wembley when there’s an event there. Moving 90,000 people from Wembley Stadium is no easy task, but with the right coordination and up-to-date travel information, it becomes a lot smoother.

Measuring success

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Our network is complex and varied and requires careful stewardship to keep it in good condition.

Our maintenance programme is essential to safety and keeping our roads open, while our renewals activity allows us to maintain, safeguard and modernise all our assets. Research and data help us to understand what our network will need over the short and long term and inform our planning. We are committed to delivering our work in a way that minimises disruption to our customers and maximises value to taxpayers.

In a crisis situation like severe weather, our gas distribution network is similar to National Highways’s road network – customers don’t really think about it until there’s an issue and just expect it to work smoothly all the time.

It’s good knowing we can rely on National Highways to do its job – deploying road teams and winter treatment vehicles. It means we can get our people to where they’re needed – allowing us to keep the gas flowing and our people safe and warm.

Measuring success

We want our roads to work more harmoniously with the communities that live alongside them, and the environments that surround them.

Every aspect of our business has a part to play in improving environmental performance, alongside ensuring we meet our statutory obligations. We will embed environmental considerations into all our activities, ranging from infrastructure design to scheme delivery, supported by our environment and wellbeing fund. We will also support the government in delivering their wider environmental strategies.

The A556 is a good example of how we’re working with National Highways. The green bridge re-connects wooded areas fragmented by the new road, known to be important commuting and foraging routes for bats. The bridge is also expected to provide connectivity for species such as badger and amphibians present in the scheme footprint, as well as pollinators and other invertebrates.

Measuring success

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We want to meet and exceed the expectations of all those who use our network.

There are many touch points for our customers – from the infrastructure we provide and facilities we support, to the information we share and the control centres we manage. Our research and feedback, combined with insight from others, helps us to understand how our services and roads may need to evolve. We will work with Transport Focus to deliver what our customers need and want, now and in the future.

As a wheelchair user, it’s hugely important for me to have the choice to drive. A smooth journey for me is all about knowing what will happen – as far as is possible. So, tools like the National Highways app are a routine part of how I plan. I build in time and room for problems that might happen, like a traffic build up or lane closures on the M25 for example.

Measuring success

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We are setting out to deliver £2.23 billion of efficiencies, which will mean that taxpayers will see even more investment for their money than in the past.

We will make improvements to how we procure and manage our suppliers, as well as to how we plan our own maintenance, operations and renewals. These activities will complement our internal capability and development programmes, and our steps to develop our company. We will reinvest all money saved through efficiencies into our network.

Efficiency is about more than numbers. It’s about looking at how we plan, procure and manage our contracts. It’s also about how we work with our suppliers and others to improve the way we deliver schemes.

Measuring success