HTMA calls for sustained investment in roads

Highways maintenance funding key to unlocking Britain’s productivity potential, says leading trade body

WITH the Autumn Budget imminent, the Highways Term Maintenance Association (HTMA), the UK’s leading trade body for the highways maintenance sector, has called for sustained investment in the country’s roads network to help generate improved productivity in the UK economy.

The HTMA says it hopes to see additional long-term secured investment in local roads maintenance as well as confirmation of the Government’s commitment to Highways England’s Roads Investment Strategy 2 (RIS2) for strategic roads network investment and maintenance (ie longer-term financial surety).

In its pre-budget statement, the HTMA stated: ‘We firmly believe that the Government needs to refine its long-term investment strategy for our entire road network, strategic and local, not just in major capital projects but in fundamental roads maintenance and the management and further development of the highway asset.’

On the strategic road network, this means a clear commitment to RIS2. Within this, the HTMA would like to see clear and consistent levels of funding being allocated to the maintenance element of Highways England (HE) activity. It says as HE data systems become more robust, the capacity to bring stability and consistency to maintenance allocation and delivery should increase.

For local authorities, the HTMA believes there is a need to go beyond the principles of Challenge Funding. It argues that the Government needs to add more incentives and encouragement to local authorities to ‘spend to save’ through structured investment across the entire local authority road network, whether through improved revenue allocations or relaxed borrowing authorities.

According to the trade association, if the UK’s economy is to remain robust through and beyond Brexit, road infrastructure is going to be critical to its success, and to allow that to happen the programming of investment needs to be made now, not next year or the year after that.

Also calling for the Government to build on its support for the proposed Major Roads Network with some firm financial commitment to allow movement towards implementation, the HTMA says it would like to see a coherent plan for implementation, with a combination of capital and revenue support to be rolled out over the next five years to allow for maintenance and development of existing roads, in addition to those projects that will be needed to ‘fill the gaps’.

‘The Government has consistently highlighted that increased productivity is crucial to our economic future; we believe that increased investment in highways maintenance is the key to unlocking improved productivity nationwide,’ commented HTMA chief executive George Lee (pictured).

‘The Government has done well with its previous commitment to funding our road network, however, to ensure that the benefits from previous investment are secured, there is a real need to follow this commitment with renewed vision and funding.’