A Multi-Agency Partnership is being formed as part of the West Midlands Combined Authority Network Resilience Plans, approved on 17th February 2017.
The partnership is considered essential in managing network resilience during the next 5-10 years of major transport works across the West Midlands Combined Authority area, including:
- HS2 Phase 1
- Highways England delivering phases 1 and 2 of the Road Investment Strategy
- Network Rail’s investment in capacity upgrades in and around Birmingham
- West Midlands Combined Authority’s own investment in HS2 connectivity, Metro and local transport
- Major maintenance and utilities works
- Major development in Birmingham City Centre and elsewhere, including Cannock.
This is a significant opportunity to evolve collaborative partnerships between organisations, so that we learn from past experiences and focus on delivering customer needs and safe, reliable transport throughout the inevitable disruption these works could otherwise cause.
As the following BBC news clip shows, a fatal crash and significant delays on the M6 in Spring 2016 raised a lot of the issues that this multi-agency partnership, including Highways England will need to learn from:
The Office of Road and Rail (ORR) is responsible for monitoring Highway England’s delivery of the Road Investment Strategy, and will be focusing on putting customer needs first, as ORR Highways Director Peter Antolik explains in this video: