National Highways is required to operate, maintain and enhance an efficient, safe and reliable strategic road network (SRN), which is made up of the motorways and major A roads in England.
The focus of our work across the coming year will be a mix of closing out the second road period (RP2) that ends in March 2025, preparing for the next five-year period, the third road period (RP3), due to start next business year in April 2026, and overseeing the settlement for the interim period in 2025 to 2026.
We will report on National Highways’ performance and its delivery of the final year of RP2 and five-year second road investment strategy (RIS2) in our Annual Assessment (to be laid in Parliament) and regional benchmarking work.
We will publish our fourth annual assessment of safety performance on the strategic road network. Its ongoing value has been recognised by a number of industry and parliamentary stakeholders.
Looking toward the third road investment strategy (RIS3), we will carry out our Efficiency Review of National Highways’ draft Strategic Business Plan this year and deliver our independent expert advice to the Secretary of State for Transport. Ultimately, our recommendations will help the government maximise the long-term benefits of its investment in the strategic road network, leading to better outcomes for road users, improved environmental impacts, and better value for money for taxpayers.
We will work with the Department for Transport and National Highways to ensure that National Highways has a refreshed and clear performance framework for RP3 with challenging and deliverable commitments for which we can hold the company effectively to account. Alongside this, we will publish the outcome of the public consultation on our holding National Highways to account policy and issue a refreshed version to take effect from 1 April 2026.
Following the investigation into National Highways that we concluded last year, National Highways has made good progress on the implementation of its improvement plan and we expect to close out the remaining issues this year.
We have paused our Road Expert Panel for 2025-26. We have agreed with the Department for Transport that we will use the space provided this year between road periods to take stock of how we can build on the positive outputs of the panel in an efficient way. We will also publish research on how National Highways engages with its stakeholders and consider any recommendations that flow from that.