A top National Highways official has pushed back against criticism from the company’s regulator that it ignored warnings over the risk of missing its 2025 casualty reduction target.
Katherine Beard, director, future road investment strategy and government relations, told an industry event that National Highways has done ‘a good job’ of reducing casualties on its network.
Her comments come despite warnings from the Office of Rail and Road (ORR) that the government-owned company will miss its December 2025 target of a 50% reduction in killed and serious injury (KSI) casualties across its network against a 2005-2009 baseline.
Ms Beard also appeared to let slip that National Highways plans to put its longstanding 2040 zero harm target back by 10 years.
She told an industry conference: ‘That zero harm by 2040, 2050 that is an ambitious target, but at the same time I think we’ve got good plans in place to meet that.
‘We’ve done a good job of making those reductions over the last road period and we’re absolutely committed to continuing to do that in the future, so for us it’s still at the heart of what we are doing.’
In its annual assessment of National Highways’ performance 2023-24, the ORR noted that it had consistently raised with the company the risk of missing its 2025 target as traffic levels increased following the pandemic.
In fact, the ORR said that if National Highways ‘had been more proactive in recognising the risks earlier in the road period and developed more robust safety plans sooner this would have increased the likelihood of meeting the target’.
source: The Office of Rail and Road
Although KSIs were below the company’s 2020 target of a 40% cut during that year, when traffic levels were lower, the latest data shows that in 2022 KSIs were back above the target with a cut of just 38%.
As Highways has reported, National Highways has repeated declined to confirm that 2040 remains its target for achieving zero harm on its network.
However, the ORR told Highways this year that the target ‘still stands’.
A spokesperson told Highways ‘ORR holds National Highways to account for delivery of the requirements set out in the RIS, which includes the company’s zero harm ambition of bringing the number of people killed or seriously injured to a level approaching zero by 2040.'
