MOTORISTS are not being properly informed about nearly half of all overnight road closures on the region's major roads, a report has found.

The Office of Rail and Road (ORR) has this week published its Benchmarking National Highways report outlining the regional differences in performance across National Highways’ motorways and major A roads in England.

Read more: CONFIRMED: The North East will host massive Tour of Britain race - with millions watching

The ORR, which is the independent monitor of National Highways, found that there are significant differences across England in the accuracy and timeliness in the notification of overnight road closures.

ORR found across Yorkshire and the North East, just 58 per cent of road closures are accurately notified.

While this is slightly higher than the national average of 55 per cent, it is lower than the better performing regions in the Midlands (66%) and the South West (64%).

Currently, the South East is the worst performing region, with under half (42%) of road closures accurately notified.

The Northern Echo:

National Highways is responsible for the UK's major road network including the A1 Picture: Google

ORR reports that despite National Highways improving how it informs motorists about closures, it still needs to make substantial progress to meet its 90 per cent target by 2025.

Further findings from ORR’s report show that National Highways did exceed its target for clearing incidents on North East and Yorkshire roads, with 89 per cent cleared within less than one hour.

The region also exceeded the target of 95 per cent of road surfaces not requiring further investigation (96%).

ORR also looked at air quality on the country's major roads and found that 31 sections were above the legal air quality levels in 2020-21, varying significantly by region.

There were seven above stipulated air quality limits in Yorkshire and the North East, 11 in the Midlands and none in the East of England.

Sneha Patel, deputy director of Highways at ORR, said: “Our annual benchmarking report this year has led to greater transparency around National Highways’ performance and will incentivise its regions to improve further.

"We’ve now got a four-fold increase in the number of performance indicators that National Highways must report on: that’s a considerable step forward.

“However, there continue to be significant regional differences and we expect National Highways to apply the lessons it has learned about what works well in one region to other parts of the country as part of the steps it will take to meet all national-level targets by 2024‑25.”

Read more: Worries new solar farm will ruin the view near Darlington beauty spot

Nick Harris, National Highways’ chief executive, said: “We are committed to ensuring that customers are well-informed about maintenance and planned upgrades to the strategic road network in advance, allowing them to feel safe and in control of their journeys.

"This includes notification of all overnight closures seven days before they happen.

“As the ORR report rightly points out, National Highways made substantial improvements towards this target in 2020-21 and we are well on track to achieving 90 per cent accuracy by 2024-25.

“Overnight closures are vital to ensure that the country’s busiest roads – used by millions of vehicles each day – can be effectively maintained and improved, making them fit for the future.”

--

Keep up to date with all the latest news on our website, or follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.

You can also follow our dedicated North Yorkshire Facebook page for all the latest in the area by clicking here.

For all the top news updates from right across the region straight to your inbox, sign up to our newsletter here.

Have you got a story for us? Contact our newsdesk on newsdesk@nne.co.uk or contact 01325 505054