Highways UK | 2020 Highways UK update

Highways UK trust you are keeping well and staying safe during the lockdown and wanted to update you on their thoughts for Highways UK on 4/5 November.

Their current expectation and hope is that some kind of new normal will have returned by the summer. Although they can only guess at the present time, they are pushing ahead on the assumption that Highways UK will run as scheduled in November.

Before lockdown, they were in good shape and Highways UK remains confident that they will be able to deliver an event at the scale of last year’s stunning success.

Content-wise the conference programmes are also progressing. At the start of 2020, the roads sector was looking forward to a very big and exciting year and in many respects, that remains the case. Priorities, however, have clearly changed. The here and now is how does my business survive, but the schism created by COVID 19 is forcing a moment of reflection and many fundamental questions are being raised.

Highways UK are extremely lucky to have an exceptional advisory board who are continuing, remotely, to steer the thought-leadership elements of the programme from which the emerging narrative combines elements of the very immediate challenges of progressing projects and keeping businesses afloat overlain by the idea that the aim should not be a matter of simply getting back to where they were. Can this massive shock to the system accelerate the uptake of the things they have been talking about for years that will genuinely improve their outputs and how they operate?

Details of the programme will be released in the summer and beyond the Main Theatre programme, which is largely the preserve of the advisory board, organisations are very welcome to pitch for speaker slots. You’ll find further details on the process here.

Similarly, they will continue to run their guest “Talking Heads” blogs through the event cycle and invite contributions of 500-700 words.

Please email Paul.Wheeler@highways-uk.com with your ideas.

Advance warning too of the imminent launch of their two innovation competitions and the 2020 Laureates awards which celebrate the extraordinary achievements of key individuals in the UK highways sector.

And although their contracted exhibition space is already almost equal to last year’s event, exhibiting and sponsor opportunities remain. Please note that under our T&Cs, in the event that they have to postpone, any commitments will be carried over to the new date.

Please email Andrew.Dowding@highways-uk.com to discuss your needs.

Finally their thanks to everyone involved in Highways UK, their sponsors and exhibitors, speakers, visitors and suppliers, the advisory board and those colleagues across the sector whose input contributes to making the event happen. They will do whatever they can to support the sector by creating an event in November designed to be a cathartic moment to come together, take stock and move forward.”

More information can be found at Highways-uk.com and you can book your FREE place here.