Back to RoadIn its second road period (RP2, 2020 to 2025), National Highways delivered the majority of its renewals and small improvements through two frameworks; the Scheme Delivery Framework (SDF) and Pavement Delivery Framework (PDF), with a combined value of around £5bn. The government’s third Road Investment Strategy (RIS3) outlined investment of £27bn from 2026 to 2031, with a growing share (around £8.4bn) allocated to renewals.
Accordingly, National Highways has launched its Scheme Delivery Framework 2 (SDF2) to replace SDF and PDF, with an estimated value of £14.5bn from 2027 to 2035. The framework will focus on renewing and maintaining existing assets, with a strong emphasis on collaboration, standardisation, and productivity. It aims to focus spending on long-term asset improvements rather than temporary fixes, while simplifying commercial models to reduce administrative burden.
Both the overall scale of, and increase in, SDF2 demonstrate the value of the certainty brought by the Road Investment Strategy (RIS) framework. The policy direction and certainty of funding that it provides allows long-term planning and procurement that, in turn, facilitates investment from the supply chain to deliver high-quality, efficient infrastructure projects.
