Steve Davy | Head of Technical Standards
National Highways

Steve has worked in the highway sector for over 35 years in a variety of roles for clients and consultants.  He is currently the Head of Technical Standards at National Highways where he has overseen the development of the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) and the Manual of Contract Documents for Highway Works (MCHW) for the last 10 years.  Between 2015 and 2020 he led the first ever major update to the structure, usability and content of the DMRB.  He is now leading a similar approach to update the structure, usability and content of the MCHW and this will radically amend the structure of the Specification for Highway Works and how project specific requirements are developed and incorporated in to the construction contract.   Alongside these delevelopments, Steve has led the development of specialist software that assists the development, governance and publication of the DMRB and MCHW.  The DMRB and MCHW content is being digitalised and this will be available as machine-readable content  and well as human-readable content.  This machine-readable content will be available for use in real-time by design software, design compliance software, estimating software and enable the development of many other software packages such as product acceptance against realtime requirements.  This approach also enables quicker updates to to the DMRB and MCHW to take account of innovations, policy changes and respond to the need to reach Net Zero by 2050. Steve will present the changes to the MCHW, it's programme for implementation and this will assist the industry in adjusting to the approach.