Our communication and support strategy

General approach

The launch of the updated MCHW and associated DMRB consequential amendments is a substantial change. To support this transition ensuring users know what they need to know when they need to know it, the Overseeing Organisations have set out a communication strategy including:

  • Awareness activities (2020-2024): these included articles on the Standards for Highways and industry websites and magazines, presentations at conferences and webinars at ad hoc events.
  • Preparation for implementation support activities (2023-2025): these included development of the MCHW information hub and a task to validate the usability, structure and content of the WSR templates with the supply chain using real project examples.
  • Pre-launch activities (2024-2025): these included development of material for the post-launch live webinars, refresh of the Standards for Highways website for the MCHW and engagement with MCHW Change ambassadors to gain feedback from an MCHW user perspective.
  • Launch announcements (30 September 2025)
  • Post-launch activities for embedment in the short, medium and long term

Post launch support

The post launch support includes the following:

  • Introductory webinars, which provide key information to be aware of before navigating the MCHW information hub and the Standards for Highways website; they are available here.
  • Webinars covering specific topics like carbon reduction through the updated documents.
  • MCHW information hub, which covers essential guidance for the implementation of the updated MCHW, including detailed information about the preparation of the contract specifications using the WSR templates. All feedback, comments and questions received are reviewed, responses are provided on this hub and used to enhance and clarify the existing content and/or feed into enhancements to the MCHW documents, the WSR templates or the Standards for Highways website.
  • Standards for Highways website, which provides access to all documents, help pages and the feedback form to ask additional questions.

Any additional training session?

There is no plan for formal training sessions. The MCHW information hub is designed to help all users / stakeholders understand what has changed, how the changes affect them, and how and when the new contract specifications are expected to be compiled.

Please access the updated documents and start familiarising with them. We recommend reviewing the list of MCHW sections to understand which content is covered and where.

For any specific technical question on the documents, please use the Standards for Highways feedback form.