National Highways is the government company that plans, designs, builds, operates and maintains England's motorways and major A roads, known as the strategic road network (SRN). Its stated priorities are safety, customers and delivery, and its Road to Zero Harm initiative aims for no one to be killed or seriously injured on its roads. Core funding is set through the Road Investment Strategy, normally in five year Road Investment Periods, and the company publishes a Strategic Road Network Report (SRNIR) for 2025 to 2030, a pipeline of possible future schemes, an annual benchmarking dashboard and Post Opening Project Evaluations of major schemes.
Working with National Highways
Partners and contractors deliver much of the work on the network. Suppliers can find opportunities through the becoming a supplier pages, which cover the National Highway Sector Schemes for quality management, skills card and registration requirements for operatives, a social enterprise dynamic purchasing system and guidance on Lean principles. The company also runs the Roads Academy with the industry and publishes design standards through the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges, including Optimised Working Windows guidance on deploying traffic management.
National Highways is a noticing authority. Organisations other than National Highways that need to work on, over or under the SRN or divert traffic onto it apply for network occupancy in line with noticing legislation, including the New Roads and Street Works Act, while its own works follow standards such as GM 702 for network occupancy and GG 902 for advance notification of closures.
Road users report potholes, broken signs and other issues on motorways and major A roads through its online reporting service, and the 24 hour customer contact centre is on 0300 123 5000.
The strategic road network
England’s motorways and major A roads, by maintenance area
4,500+miles of motorway and major A road
1/3of all traffic and two thirds of freight
6operational regions
£27 billion+RIS3 funding, April 2026 to March 2031
Tap an area or a road to see who maintains it. Area shapes are indicative: council districts grouped by the area that runs most of their National Highways roads. Road network: National Highways HAPMS export, 1 October 2026. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
Areas and contractors
Who maintains each part of the network
National Highways still uses its numbered areas in contracts. Each area has a maintenance and response contractor, plus scheme delivery and pavement framework suppliers. Listings in this directory are linked.
Covers: Somerset, North Somerset, South Gloucestershire, Bath & North East Somerset, Gloucestershire, Devon, Cornwall, Wiltshire, Western Dorset, Plymouth City, Bristol City
M&R2 Lot 1 South West (est. £671m); tender notice 24 Aug 2026; contracts estimated from 6 Jan 2028
Covers: Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, with a traffic management function in Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire
Covers: Northumberland, Tyne and Wear, County Durham, North Yorkshire
M&R2 Lot 7 Yorkshire & North East
Other DBFO and toll roads
A1 Darrington to DishforthSeparate operating contract · about 28 km
A19Separate operating contract · about 4 km
M40Separate operating contract · about 125 km
A249Separate operating contract · about 17 km
A30/A35Moving into the Areas 1 and 2 contract · about 62 km
Second Severn CrossingSeparate operating contract · about 10 km
Contractors from Find a Tender and Contracts Finder notices (August 2025) and contractors’ own announcements. The current maintenance contracts are being replaced by Maintenance and Response 2 from 2028.
Funding
Road Investment Strategy 3 (RIS3)
April 2026 to March 2031, published 26 March 2026.
Over £27 billionTotal settlement
£24.99 billionCore funding to operate, maintain, renew and enhance
Regional Delivery Partnership (RDP) / Delivery Integration Partner (DIP) framework (major schemes)£8.7bn · awarded 19 Nov 2018 for 6 years; extended by deeds of variation (29 Mar 2023) to 28 Feb 2026, pending the Integrated Delivery Framework (IDF)
