ABSTRACT
The maze of roads that is the nation’s highway system have been selectively improved over centuries and have been classified, managed and signed to form the unified network we use today. We have to make a very deliberate effort to recognise that it was not always like this. National roads and national policies are a comparatively recent phenomenon, excluding the few long-distance routes that have survived from the military occupation by the Romans. Roads and other forms of transport grew from very local beginnings.
