Regulator Reports South West Notifies Two-Thirds Of Road Work Closures Correctly

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR), independent monitor of National Highways, earlier this month published Benchmarking National Highways report outlining the regional differences in performance across National Highways motorways and major A roads in England.

The ORR are driving the need for more transparency and data to be published, and as such National Highways has increased the number of performance indicators the company makes public at a regional level from just 5 in 2019/20 to 22 in 2020/21. The new indicators include safety for all, and delivering environmental outcomes. This new data has been published in the report.

In one of the new indicators, ORR saw significant differences across England in the accuracy and timeliness in the notification of overnight road closures. National Highways, is tasked with enduring that, nationally, 90% of overnight closures are published, seven days in advance by 2024/25, the company only achieved 55% in 2020/21. The ORR found in the South West area, it was slightly higher at 64% of closures being reported correctly.

This compares to the best area of reporting in the Midlands (66%) and the South East performing the worst (42%) of correct notifications. The ORR has made further recommendations to reach their 2024/25 target on how to improve their accuracy.

The ORR found the South West exceeded the National target of 86% for clearing incidents, with 90% cleared within less than one hour. The South West also exceeded the 95% target of road surfaces not requiring further investigation at 96%.

Another of the ORR performance indicators include the legal air quality levels across the country, that again varied across the regions. There were 3 areas in the South West exceeding the levels.

ORR expects National Highways to continue to progress with their Road Period 2 (2020-2025) performance levels set and will continue to be reviewed regularly, with the next report due next year.