Carry on caravanning: Highways Agency signs historic partnership with two caravan clubs
The Highways Agency has made an historic commitment to the thousands of campers and caravanners who use its motorways and A roads.
Graham Dalton with a West Midlands Highways Agency Traffic Officer, also outside the NEC event
The Agency has signed a tri-party agreement with partners The Caravan Club and The Camping and Caravanning Club during one of the biggest events in the UK caravan industry calendar.
Graham Dalton, Chief Executive of the Highways Agency, put pen to paper with Nick Lomas, Director General of The Caravan Club, and Robert Louden MBE, Director General of The Camping and Caravanning Club, at the 2014 Motorhome & Caravan Show in Birmingham.
This is the first tri-party agreement of its kind that the Agency has entered into and reflects the closer relationship it is looking to develop with the many different users of its road network. In total, the two clubs represent around 1.5 million campers and caravanners.
Graham said:
England’s motorways and major A roads help millions of people get away on their holidays every year.
Campers, caravanners and motorhome users use our roads to get to their destinations – and we want all their journeys to be as safe and as trouble free as possible.
We want to help drivers with advice on planning their journeys and encourage them to prepare their vehicles or trailers. Meanwhile, the government is investing heavily to reduce congestion and make journeys a lot smoother.
Under the banner of Safer journeys, happier holidays, the 15 October agreement comes as the Agency moves towards becoming a government-owned company in 2015, with additional responsibility and accountability towards its customers - road users. It also means the three organisations can continue to build on their previous joint achievements which were carried out under separate agreements.
In practice the agreement will herald:
- Closer liaison and collaboration in areas concerning road safety and road safety campaigns
- Further development of best practice, such as towing best practice and communicating this to club members
- Sharing more information and intelligence to improve journey time reliability for club members and develop a mutual understanding with the clubs
- A positive platform for the Highways Agency to communicate with club members and listen to their views.
Nick Lomas said:
Most of The Club’s one million members are regular users of the strategic road network.
It’s important to us that holiday journeys are safe, reliable and trouble free, and our work in conjunction with the Highways Agency helps to ensure that is the case.
We are pleased to make this new commitment to continuing joint activities, and look forward to an ongoing successful partnership.
Robert Louden added:
The welfare and safety of camping units in all their many forms is hugely important to us here at The Camping and Caravanning Club.
But we believe leisure motoring should be enjoyable too - heading off on a touring holiday should feel like part of the adventure.
That’s why we are delighted to stand together with our partners to represent the interests of our club members on the open road, to make for happier, safer journeys and a better start and end to their touring breaks.
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