Highways England has delivered the majority of its commitments and has made progress over Road Period 1 (2015-2020), making £1.4 billion in efficiency savings over the five years, according to the Office of Rail and Road (ORR).
The organisation has published its Annual Assessment of Highways England, in which it says Highways England made ‘significant progress’ by meeting its target for keeping the network in good condition. By the end of Roads Period 1, pavement condition was 95.5%-0.5% higher than the agreed target.
Network availability and incident clearance had also both improved, meaning Highways England met in targets to support the smooth flow of traffic on its network.
Highways England also met its target for delivering better environmental outcomes. Against a target to mitigate at least 1,150 ‘noise important’ areas by the end of the period, 1,174 were actually achieved.
It also met its challenge to achieve real efficiency, not only by making the £1.4 billion efficiency savings over five years but by also achieving 95% of its capital delivery milestones over the period.
With regards to safety, the ORR said ‘further hard work’ was requited to meet safety targets by the end of 2020-a 40% reduction in killed or seriously injured= but Highways England already had ‘an enhanced focus on improving safety’ on its network. So far, the latest figures from 2018 shows a 30% reduction in KSIs from the baseline figure.
Chief executive of the ORR John Larkinson promised to continue to closely scrutinise Highways England over the next period and said: ‘Over the last five years Highways England has made very good progress and we have seen it meeting almost all of the targets it was set. We have pushed Highways England hard to deliver on safety, efficiency and meeting the needs of road users.”
To read the full report and assessment, please go to:
