UKRLG HAS RECENTLY published its three-year Retrospective on the DfT Highway Sector Learning from Extreme Weather Events review (2021), including the first analysis of the UKRLG Hazards Survey (2023). This retrospective reflects on the highway sector’s response to the Lessons from Extreme Weather Emergencies (2015 to 2020) review, published by DfT in November 2021.

While the 2021 DfT report provided the compelling message of “prepare for your worst day not an average day”, the UKRLG retrospective delivers a further warning to be ready for more intense and frequent events. Fifteen years of austerity has left a legacy of older and frailer assets, with our roads, drainage and retaining walls now more vulnerable to the coming storms.

The catastrophic damage to 1,234 assets in Cumbria during Storm Desmond in 2015 was a disaster by any definition and serves as the UK’s current high watermark. However, we must prepare for a repeat of Desmond plus 30%.

HIGHWAY HEROES

When faced with these challenges, all UK highway authorities step up time and again. However, the backdrop is a growing risk that ‘just in time’ could become ‘just too late’.  Valencia 2024 and the floods in Belgium and Germany in 2021 are harbingers of the magnitude of risk that our changing climate has delivered – and will deliver again.

As an industry, we should be proud of our local skills and the national winter service standard. It’s through sharing knowledge and experience that highways authorities across the country will best be able to implement the findings of the UKRLG report. This conversation must involve all authorities, not just those that have the resources to engage or the misfortune to have experienced extreme weather over the last few years.

NEW GUIDANCE

We’re a great sector, standing ready to support each other against the multiple hazards and threats to which our transport network is exposed. Practically, we must use the forthcoming 2025 review of the Code of Practice for Well-Managed Highway Infrastructure to embed extreme weather resilience throughout the guidance.

We already have specific guidance on winter service. However, we must also better define our response to broader hazards. We are an innovative and responsive sector, and through learning and sharing we must better understand how to equip our highway heroes with new skills, training and capabilities to do their jobs well.

As the UKRLG report states, you mustn’t wait for your own ‘personal epiphany’ of witnessing and experiencing our communities in dire need. Through this report, we can build a solid network and will make friends before we need them. This will ensure that our sector’s deep expertise and skill bases evolve to meet the challenges of the coming years and decades.

Click here to access the report:  UKRLG 2025 Emergency Preparedness, Recovery & Response

Words by John Lamb

Extreme weather events such as Storm Desmond test the skills of the entire transport industry