Utility companies accused of exploiting rules to avoid submitting formal pla
Workmen are abusing emergency powers to dig up roads across Britain, frustrated transport bosses have claimed.
A clause allowing workmen from gas, electric, water and telecoms suppliers to descend on a site at little or no notice is being exploited to avoid submitting more formal plans, MPs were told on Wednesday.
Keith McNally, from the Confederation of Passenger Transport (CPT), which represents bus operators, said its members were experiencing a surge in emergency roadworks that gave them no time to prepare for lengthy traffic jams.
He told the Commons transport select committee: “Our members are saying that a very high proportion seem to be on an emergency basis.
“Those are the ones where they get little or no notice. The first they know is when they turn up at a site where there are street works.
“It’s the unpredictability. That’s an issue for our members who are trying to run to a timetable.”
Bus schedules thrown ‘out of kilter’
Journeys that should take 10 minutes along a particular road can easily increase to up to 50 minutes, MPs were told. Delays can then grow longer still when a bus passes the same spot again and again, throwing its schedule completely out of kilter.
Asked whether the emergency status was being abused to accommodate non-critical roadworks, Mr McNally said: “Our members feel it is.”
He said that even when companies do provide advanced notice of disruptive roadworks, they often fail to stick to the specified schedule.
Mr McNally added: “A really big frustration is when bus or coach operators make provision for a closure on a particular day, then the day comes and the road is completely clear.
“Likewise, at the end of scheduled works, they continue when we had expected it [the road] to return to normal.”
The average number of road “openings” by utility firms in England outside of London jumped from 13,250 per local authority in 2018 to more than 17,200 last year, a 30pc increase, according to industry figures.
Across England and Wales overall, the tally for the year was more than 2.4m.
Joined-up thinking ‘desperately needed’
Jack Cousens, the head of roads policy at the AA, said that while it was galling for drivers to have roadworks springing up without warning, the impact could be reduced if companies co-ordinated to minimise disruption.
He said motorists were instead subjected to a “horrible cycle of roadworks that never seem to end”.
Mr Cousens added: “The gas company is in one week, they go away, then the water company get in the hole, they disappear, then the broadband company, they fill it back up and disappear, and somebody else comes in.
“Joined-up thinking is what’s desperately needed.”
Mr Cousens said that more than 200 companies and agencies have a right to dig up Britain’s roads.
He said the number had been swollen by initiatives such as Project Gigabit, which aims to improve broadband coverage across the UK, along with efforts to boost the number of electric vehicle charging points.
Such works are not only disruptive to traffic flows but are also “ruining the structural integrity of our roads,” creating potholes that in turn require further closures to repair, Mr Cousens added.
Till Sommer, the head of policy at the Internet Services Providers’ Association, told MPs that the public should look beyond disruption caused by broadband-related roadworks and consider the “digital dividend” for Britain.
Clive Biarsto, the chief executive of Street Works UK, a trade association, said utility firms were responsible for about 60pc of roadworks but were to blame for no more than 7pc of traffic disruption.
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