Friday 7th November 2003

Hole Story

Utility companies exaggerate estimates to avoid fines

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Utility companies may be exaggerating the duration of road works by up to 50% to avoid fines and half of their resurfacing work is not up to quality, according to the RAC Foundation.

These claims are made in a new study for the Department for Transport to assess the extent of street works and in a consultation from the Scottish Executive.

The first study looked at Section 74 of the New Roads and Street Works Act, which provides a highway authority with the powers to charge a utility for occupying the highway beyond a set period and found :

• There are twice as many excavations per month from the water sector compared to gas, telecoms or electricity sectors.
• These other sectors display similar levels and patterns of activity.
• The utilities have increased the estimates of time that their work will take to avoid charges, but the authorities are not challenging the estimates.
• The report estimates that there are at least 1.1 million street works per year
• Utilities appear to be over-estimating the duration of major and standard works by at least 35% and up to 50% more than the actual durations of these works
• The overestimate exceeds the actual duration by up to 50%.
• Co-ordination is weak as most authorities are unable to monitor, challenge and co-ordinate because of limited resources and bad management.

As a result of this study the RAC Foundation is calling for new legislation to cut the two billion pounds worth of delays caused by utility companies digging up the UK’s roads. A new bill, designed to tackle the street works nightmare, may be included in the Queen’s Speech later this month.

The new bill is also expected to increase the level of fines that utility companies will have to pay if they abuse their powers. At the moment, many utility companies are believed to claim that their work is an emergency to avoid having it monitored by the local authority.

Current laws to control the disruption caused by holes in the road were introduced twelve years ago when only a handful of utilities existed but the increasing popularity of high speed internet and the de-regulation of gas and electricity services has meant that over a hundred and fifty companies are now allowed to dig up the highway.

[Larco]

Resurfacing is definately not up to standard.
Ever tried to ride the cart tracks on the inside lane of the M6 between warrington and preston.

[GrahamG]

It was the same until recently on the inside lane of the M25 in fairly large sections - scarey stuff

[Swilly]

Ooops, I thought the 'cart' tracks on the inside motorway lane was an auto-pilot for tired motorists.

I drove down the M6-M1 from Brum to London asleep all the way once on these.

[kevinday]

I propose a very fair and straightforward solution. All utilities companies that dig-up the road must pay a rate per day, according to the classification of the road, more for commuter routes etc. It does not matter whether it is an emergency or routine work, the end result is disruption, therefore they should be charged in all cases. If the resurfacing is not up to the required standard they must redo it, paying the same rate per day until it is done.

Problem solved, it would even be self-financing, the local governments could employ somebody to monitor all road works in its area and levy the charges accordingly.

[fix it]

great plan to get the utilities to all work together when the road way is open BUT have you ever tried to get ONE of them to come at a planed time to meet you let alone get 3 or 4 in the same place at ont time you got more chance of T>B lot of 1/2 fuel tax next year. In fairness they seem to have got repairing armco down to fine art now.A 16 wheeler did about 200 m at 6:30am last week and it was back in place by 11:45pm that night. And hole gang did a good job on the A11 night work Thank god if that had been done in day time the tail back would have been down to London one way. but the roads to the east coast need sorting out A14 has auto pliot lane from M1/M6 to the coast. but if you see as meany over weight lorrys as i do you can only wonder the roads stand up so well there are not hard to spot there the ones that can't get up to speed,take 20 miles to overtake on two lane roads