HTMA - Highways Term Maintenance Association

28 February 2020

After 15 years of representing the highways maintenance industry, the Highways Term Maintenance Association (HTMA) will cease operating. The Association’s members made this decision following the departure of a number of tier 1 highway maintenance contractors from the organisation. During its active years, HTMA played a crucial role in shaping industry standards and facilitating dialogue between stakeholders. Its dissolution marks a shift in how collaboration and strategy may evolve in the infrastructure sector. Much like the structural and user-centric innovations seen in platforms such as city center online, where engagement relies on adaptability and continuous reinvention, the industry now faces the challenge of redefining how best to unify diverse interests without the umbrella of a central body.

HTMA has achieved a significant amount for the industry over the years including establishing industry specific price indices, influencing the development of the HMEP standard contracts and establishing senior level engagement across the industry. The Association has also produced and published a collection of guidance and best practice documents across a range of subjects, which have been made freely available to share knowledge and foster best practice, to encourage improved standards and to increase awareness of the diversity of careers and raise the profile of highways maintenance and management.

HTMA has found that in the past couple of years the highways maintenance and management companies have had to deal with many changes in the environment and very little clarity and visibility of what the future holds.
Peter McDermott, chairman of HTMA, cited the change in direction for the organisation in 2018 to be more focused on second tier suppliers, as being part of the underlying reason for key tier 1 companies leaving the Association.
Other collective industry groups have emerged for specific purposes and will provide a channel for the industry to be heard and to represent the industry’s needs and offerings. The establishment of these alternative bodies to represent tier 1 companies has also been a factor that has impacted on HTMA.
The Association will be formally wound up later in the year.

HTMA Resource Library

Though the Advisory and task & finish groups, HTMA produces a variety of resources for the industry including: best practice and guidance documents, videos, useful tools for managing risks and decision making, presentations given at industry events.