Highways Agency

Foreword

What we do

The Highways Agency, part of the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, maintains, operates and improves the strategic road network in England. This covers nearly all of the motorways and the more important A roads. These strategic roads form only about 4% of the total road network in England, but carry 34% of all vehicles and over 67% of heavy lorries.

Foreword

I very much welcome this document, "Strategic Roads 2010", which sets down the Highways Agency's high level strategy for our national roads over the next ten years - in response to "Transport 2010: The 10 Year Plan".

Across all forms of transport, the Government's priorities for those ten years are reduced congestion, better integration and a wider choice of safer and more reliable travel. The 10 Year Plan will deliver the integrated transport system this country needs and deserves. A system fit for the new millennium and of which we can be justly proud.

The Highways Agency has a key role in the delivery of this Plan. The strategic roads, operated by the Highways Agency, provide the commercial backbone of our country and the central part of an integrated transport system. By 2010, we intend to reduce congestion on these roads below present day levels.

These roads will continue to be maintained to a high standard and made safer for all those who use them. Road users will be able to plan their journeys with better information and greater confidence. People will find our strategic roads quieter, with less impact on the environment. Achieving these outcomes will require the progressive introduction of innovative new technology and traffic management techniques throughout the network.

"Transport 2010: The 10 Year Plan", sets out a clear vision for transport and some demanding challenges for the Highways Agency. As network operator for our strategic roads, the Agency will play a vital role in delivering the plan and in modernising travel in our country over the next decade.

This document, "Strategic Roads 2010", identifies the challenges in operating our strategic roads for the next ten years and how the Agency will go about meeting them. Of course, the Agency does not act alone in delivering the 10 Year Plan. One of the keys to successful implementation will be how the Agency works in partnership with a wide range of organisations, including colleagues in the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions, other Government Departments, regional planning bodies, emergency services, contractors and consultants, transport operators, representative organisations and customers in general.

With the publication of "Strategic Roads 2010", the Agency will look to build further on the many positive relationships it has already developed with stakeholders. In this way, the Agency will deliver a better service for all its customers, motorist and non-motorist alike, with innovation and new technology having an ever-higher profile.

The Agency will use to full advantage its professionalism to ensure it delivers a strategic road network that provides for safe and reliable travel, and one that is developed and maintained in a way which is responsive and sensitive to the needs of the communities it serves.