A NORTH-EAST engineering company has won a multi-million pound contract with the Highways Agency as part of a major project to ease motorway congestion.

Henry Williams Limited, based in Darlington, will supply secure cabinets to house sensitive roadside electronic equipment for the project, on the M42 in the West Midlands. The deal is worth up to £4.5m over four years and secures the jobs of the firm’s 106 workers.

And if demand for the equipment continues, Henry Williams, which celebrated its 125th anniversary last year, said jobs would be created at its Darlington headquarters.

The cabinets are a key element of the Highways Agency’s active traffic management scheme, being piloted on the M42, where they help to regulate use of the hard shoulder by vehicles during busy periods to improve traffic flow.

In the first six months since the scheme’s introduction in September 2006, use of the hard shoulder in peak periods saw the accident rate drop from 5.1 a month to 1.8 a month, average journey times fall by more than a quarter on the northbound carriageway, and drivers’ ability to predict their weekday journey times improved by 27 per cent.

Active traffic management schemes are being considered on other motorways, including the M25 and parts of the M4.

Howard Dilley, chairman of Henry Williams, said: “In a relatively short space of time we have become a key supplier of Highways Agency related products, helping expand the UK road network, improving safety and convenience for road users.”