The award recognises those who have shown dedication collaborative working with other teams, organisations and/or sectors to deliver real solutions, and we are delighted to announce that it has been awarded to the SRN Alliance Area 3 and SRN Alliance Area 9.

Following the three year extension of the maintenance contract awarded to the Highways England and Kier Highways partnership, a new asset delivery contract model was developed in early 2018. The new Progressive Asset Delivery (PAD) approach included Highways England taking on the asset management function for Areas 3 and 9.

The innovative SRN Alliance system was created, with 24 organisations coming together between July and November 2018 in order to develop and build content, as well as to define the alliance and its ways of workings.

The system was developed as a ‘plug and play’ model, built against the principles of ISO44001: Collaborative Working Relationships standard, to establish a framework which can be adopted by any community, including non-highways and overseas. This approach enabled a complete alignment of objectives, resulting in improved problem solving, increased trust, enhanced innovation, better stakeholder satisfaction, joint training programs, sharing best practice and joint governance. Dave Williams, regional director, sits on the SRN Alliance Area 3 board representing VolkerLaser as a key supplier of specialist services.

The judges said: “This entry took an innovative approach to enabling 24 suppliers across two Highways England delivery areas to achieve accreditation to ISO44001 in order to ensure a collaborative approach to meeting the needs of highway users. It has set a model for others to follow in the sector.”

Congratulations to all involved.