National Highways

This article is about the highway authority in England. For other authorities in the United Kingdom, see Roads in the United Kingdom § Administration. For other uses, see National Highways (disambiguation).

National Highways Limited
Formerly
  • Highways England
    (April 2015 – August 2021)
  • Highways Agency
    (March 1994 – March 2015)
Company typeGovernment-owned company
IndustryHighway authority
Founded1 April 2015 (2015-04-01)
HeadquartersBridge House
1 Walnut Tree Close
Guildford
GU1 4LZ[1]
Area served
Key people
OwnerHM Government
Number of employees
4,700 (2018)
Websitenationalhighways.co.uk Edit this at Wikidata

National Highways (NH), formerly the Highways Agency and later formerly Highways England, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England.[2]

It also sets highways standards used by all four UK administrations, through the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges. Within England, it operates information services through the provision of on-road signage and its Traffic England website, provides traffic officers to deal with incidents on its network, and manages the delivery of improvement schemes to the network.

Founded as an executive agency, it was converted into a government-owned company, Highways England, on 1 April 2015. As part of this transition, the UK government set out its vision for the future of the English strategic road network in its Road Investment Strategy. A second Road Investment Strategy was published in March 2020, with the company set to invest £27 billion between 2020 and 2025 to improve the network as described in the strategy.[3] The current name was adopted on 19 August 2021.

  1. ^ "About us". Highways England. 9 October 2019. Retrieved 24 November 2019.
  2. ^ "Nick Harris appointed Chief Executive at new-look 'National Highways'". GOV.UK. Retrieved 16 September 2021.
  3. ^ "Road Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2): 2020 to 2025". Department for Transport. Retrieved 11 March 2020.