Stakeholder engagement

The Asphalt Industry Alliance organises a free, interactive, annual Sharing Best Practice event, aimed at local authority highway engineers. Its representatives also regularly attend and speak at a large range of industry conferences.

Sharing Best Practice 2025

Proving innovation to support a more resilient local road network

Our latest Sharing Best Practice webinar brought together local authority highway teams, industry representatives and experts to explore one of the most important challenges facing the highways sector – how to prove innovation and scale it to support a more resilient local road network.

AIA Chair, David Giles, opened the event and welcomed over 250 attendees from two thirds of the UK’s councils (144 local authorities), as well as industry representatives. We were pleased to share a message from Rebecca Paul MP, Chair of the APPG for Better Roads, who underlined the value of collaboration and knowledge sharing as we work collectively to improve the condition of our local roads.

This year, we introduced the ALARM Appreciation Award to recognise an individual who has gone above and beyond in contributing to and promoting engagement with our Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey.

We were delighted to present the inaugural award to Donna Kelly, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, for her outstanding efforts in increasing participation from London boroughs to the survey in recent years.

We are grateful to all our speakers and panellists for sharing their expertise and experiences, and for allowing us to make their presentations available to view – and to all attendees for joining us, asking questions and engaging in discussions.

Sharing Best Practice 2025 presentations

Asset management in the time of climate change

Dr Ian Lancaster, Technical Lead, Eurobitume and AIA Director

In this session, Dr Lancaster highlighted the growing impact of extreme weather events on road surfaces and the role of bitumen innovation, including the use of polymer modified bitumen, in improving resilience.
Slides available here

Improving durability

Alan Ferguson, Materials Advisor, Transport Scotland
Slides available here

Neil Bromham, Pavement Materials Engineer, Welsh Government
Slides available here

Paul Edwards, Head of Specialism (pavements), National Highways
Slides available here

Speakers outlined current approaches in Scotland, Wales and England on improving the durability of the road network, followed by a discussion of what we can learn from their different national approaches.

Lower carbon materials innovation – biogenic asphalt

Donna James, Technical Director, Atkins Realis
Gordon Airey, Professor of Pavement Engineering Materials, University of Nottingham

This session explained research into low carbon materials and what recent testing has revealed from National Highways’ A30 bio-based binder trial.
Slides available here

Biogenic Asphalt discussion

Malcolm Simms, Director, MPA Asphalt and AIA Director (panel chair)
Donna James Technical Director, Atkins Realis
Gordon Airey Professor of Pavement Engineering Materials, University of Nottingham
Bill Larner, Principal Engineer, Lancashire County Council
Adrian Hadley, Head of Technical – Asphalt and Aggregates, Heidelberg Materials UK

The panel discussed trial outcomes, and what local authorities might need to consider when implementing low-carbon materials.

ADEPT Live Labs 2 Knowledge Bank

Lauren SeBlonka, Innovation Business Partner, Amey
Scott Walker, Roads and Asset Services Manager, North Lanarkshire Council

Presenters introduced the ADEPT Live Labs 2 Knowledge Bank, a digital resource designed to help local authorities access insights and tools for adopting sustainable, low-carbon innovations in road maintenance.
Slides available here

Increasing RA content of asphalt

Mark O’Leary, Operations Manager, Westminster Council
Mark Flint, Technical Director, FM Conway
Ivan Farrell, Performance Manager, FM Conway

This session discussed Westminster City Council’s approach to carbon reduction, and its work with FM Conway to lay a new road surface containing 92% recycled materials, which is the highest ever used on a UK road.
Slides available here

ADEPT Carbon Leadership Programme

Simon Wilson, Research Programme Director, Future Highways Research Group

Simon Wilson explained the Future Highways Research Group’s four-year carbon research programme, which culminated in the Carbon Leadership Programme; a national audit of carbon baselines and an assessment of best practice adoption by local authorities.
Slides available here

Panel discussion: enhancing the quality of utility reinstatements

David Giles, Chair, Asphalt Industry Alliance (panel chair)
Mark Whittaker, Head of Works Quality and Management Systems, Cadent Gas
David Capon, Strategy Manager, JAG UK
Matthew O’Sullivan, Streetworks Project Director, Network Plus

The panel discussion explored the recommendations made by the Transport Committee in its recent inquiry into street works and discussed ways we can enhance the quality of utility reinstatements, including via more collaboration.

Diary dates 2026

Some planned dates for your diary:

15 January 2026
National Pothole Day
Aims to raise awareness of potholes and prompt action to improve roads

17 March 2026
Tentative date for launch of the AIA’s Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance (ALARM) survey report

24 March
IHE Traffic Signs 2026: Conference and Exhibition
Birmingham
IHE Traffic Signs 2026: Conference and Exhibition – IHE

2 April 2026
International Road Maintenance Day
International Road Maintenance Day

20-21 May 2026
Traffex
Road maintenance, traffic management and road safety event prioritising practical solutions.
CBS Arena Coventry
The UK’s Leading Highways and Roads Tradeshow – Traffex 2026

11 – 12 June 2026
E&E ‘Perspectives from the Asphalt and Bitumen sector ‘
Vienna, Austria
E&E Event 2026 – Partners & Exhibitors

24-25 June 2026
LCRIG Innovation and Learning Festival
Event dedicated to advancing highways maintenance and transport technology
NAEC, Stoneleigh
LCRIG Innovation & Learning Festival 2026 – LCRIG

3 October 2026
Strictly Highways
LCRIGs annual conference, networking event and DfT Special Recognition Awards ceremony
The Winter Gardens, Blackpool
Strictly Highways 2026 | Local Council Roads Innovation Group CIC Limited

14 – 15 October 2026
Highways UK
Highways UK brings together the people responsible for planning, developing, managing, maintaining, and future-proofing the nation’s roads networks.
NEC, Birmingham
Roads for a connected future | Highways UK 2026