Schedule 1 Strategic highways companies: consequential and supplemental amendments
Schedule 1 Part 1 – amendments to the Highways Act 1980
36.Part 1 of Schedule 1 contains amendments to the Highways Act 1980 to allow one or more strategic highways companies to become highway authorities instead of, or alongside, the Secretary of State. (Otherwise, the Secretary of State is in law the highway authority for the strategic roads network even though his functions are in practice exercised by the Highways Agency.)
37.Where a strategic highways company is appointed, the amendments will have the effect that, for the most part, the powers and duties of the Secretary of State, in relation to the roads included in the appointment, will transfer to the strategic highways company. These include the duty to maintain public highways; powers to construct, maintain and improve highways for which it is responsible; powers to acquire land for the purposes connected with carrying out the functions of a highway authority; and powers to enter into agreements with local highway authorities. A company will also be responsible, where it is the highway authority, for determining whether an environmental impact assessment is required for schemes pursued under powers in the Highways Act 1980. The Secretary of State retains order making powers on the classification of a highway including whether a road is trunked.
38.Paragraph 43 inserts a new section 175B into the Highways Act 1980. It requires consent to be obtained from the strategic highways company for the construction, formation or laying out of any access to or from a trunk road in England. This new power allows the strategic highways company to ensure that access to its network does not interfere with the safety of road users or have a negative impact on the network (for example, by increasing congestion). Where the Secretary of State is the highway authority, these aspects can be managed by the Secretary of State who may give directions restricting the grant of planning permission by local planning authorities for development affecting the strategic road network. These powers of direction will not be available for a strategic highways company to use directly; new section 175B provides a means by which it will be able to safeguard road safety and the integrity of the road network.
Schedule 1 Part 2 - Other Enactments
39.Paragraph 68 makes strategic highways companies subject to the Public Records Act 1958. Among other things, this will ensure that documents produced by the company are properly considered for transfer to the National Archives or destroyed.
40.Paragraph 69 amends the Parliamentary Commissioner Act 1967 to add strategic highways companies to the list of Government Departments and public bodies which the Parliamentary and Health Service Ombudsman may investigate. Under current arrangements, complaints made against the Highways Agency may be escalated to the Ombudsman, and this provision allows that arrangement to continue in respect of strategic highways companies in future.
41.Paragraphs 70 to 100 amend the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 to make a strategic highways company a traffic authority for all highways for which it is responsible, and to enable the company to exercise all the functions of a traffic authority. So, for example, a strategic highways company will be able to make Traffic Regulation Orders in the same way as local traffic authorities; or to charge for the removal, storage or disposal of vehicles in the same way as other traffic authorities.
42.Paragraph 101 amends the Transport Act 1985 so as to replace a reference to the Highways Agency with a reference to strategic highways companies in connection with functions of the Passengers’ Council under that Act.
43.Paragraph 102 amends the Dartford-Thurrock Crossing Act 1988 so that powers exercised by the Secretary of State in his role as ‘crossing operator’, will transfer to a strategic highways company on its appointment. This will allow a strategic highways company to regulate the use of large vehicles and vehicles carrying dangerous goods and to recover stationary vehicles. A strategic highways company will also be able to appoint traffic officers and carry out maintenance works affecting the Thames and will have a duty to provide certain services to cyclists.
44.Paragraph 103 amends the Road Traffic Act 1988 to allow the Secretary of State to delegate the function authorising the use of special vehicles on the highway. Special vehicles are those vehicles that do not, or cannot, comply with the Road Vehicles (Construction and Use) Regulations 1986 and cannot therefore be lawfully used on the road. Section 44 of the Road Traffic Act 1988 enables the Secretary of State to authorise the use of special vehicles on the road and to make that authorisation subject to certain conditions. Due to the size and nature of abnormal and indivisible loads, they are not capable of being split into component parts and carried on separate vehicles and so special arrangements must apply. The Highways Agency authorises vehicles to carry such loads on behalf of the Secretary of State for motorways and trunk roads in England, Scotland and Wales and the ability of the Secretary of State to delegate this function will enable the new company to continue to carry out this function in the future.
45.Paragraphs 104 to 109 make a number of consequential amendments to highways-related provisions of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 to ensure that, where appropriate, they apply to a strategic highways company.
46.Paragraph 110 to 112 amend the Environmental Protection Act 1990 placing the duty to keep land and highways clear of litter on a strategic highways company for special roads (motorways). Local authorities are responsible for this on trunk roads unless the trunk road has been specified as one where the duty has transferred to the Secretary of State. The policy intention is that the strategic highways company is responsible for such specified trunk roads.
47.Paragraphs 113 to 124 amend the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 to ensure that existing provisions work properly where a strategic highways company becomes a street authority by virtue of its status as a highway authority. In particular, paragraphs 114 to 115 enable the company, where it has entered into a concession agreement in its capacity as highway authority under section 1, to apply a toll with the consent of the Secretary of State in the same way as a local highway authority would do.
48.Paragraphs 125 to 128 amend the Transport Act 2000 to allow the Secretary of State to apply a road use charge on trunk roads where he has appointed a strategic highways company to be the highway authority, in order to preserve the existing arrangements. They also enable a strategic highway company to carry out functions in relation to trunk road charging schemes, such as the installation and maintenance of equipment for the scheme.
49.Paragraphs 129 to 151 amend the Traffic Management Act 2004. Paragraph 130 enables the Secretary of State to delegate his responsibility for deciding the uniform for traffic officers to the company. Paragraphs 135 to 147 amend the existing network management duty which applies to local highway authorities so that it applies to a strategic highways company as well as local highway authorities.
50.Paragraph 152 amends the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 with the effect that a strategic highways company is responsible under that Act as a “category 2” responder required to co-operate and share information in emergency planning arrangements.
51.Section 22 of the Planning Act 2008 sets out the circumstances in which highway-related development is a nationally significant infrastructure project (NSIP) and so subject to the development consent regime under that Act. One of the conditions is that the Secretary of State is or will be the highway authority for the highway. Paragraph 153 amends section 22 to provide that such development will also be an NSIP if a strategic highways company is or will be the highway authority.
