National Highways
| Formerly |
|
|---|---|
| Company type | Government-owned company |
| Industry | Highway authority |
| Founded | 1 April 2015 |
| Headquarters | Bridge House 1 Walnut Tree Close Guildford GU1 4LZ |
Area served |
|
Key people |
|
| Owner | HM Government |
Number of employees | 6,000 (2024) |
| Website | nationalhighways |
National Highways (NH), formerly Highways England and before that the Highways Agency, is a government-owned company charged with operating, maintaining and improving motorways and major A roads in England.
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. The current name was adopted on 19 August 2021.