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UTILITY WEEK | 5TH - 11TH SEPTEMBER 2014 | 9 Interview L et's face it: streetworks aren't sexy. But they are unavoidable, time consuming, expensive – and one of one the main touchpoints with an increas- ingly irritable general public. Bob Gallienne, the chief executive of NJUG (the National Joint Utilities Group), is the man charged with sorting them out. In post for a year, Gallienne has already achieved structural reform internally, and now he's looking to raise the profile of streetworks on the national stage. He meets Utility Week on a summer morning at NJUG's London headquarters, located in the Westmin- ster office of Political Intelligence, the body's lobbying consultants. It's a good indicator of the central role lobbying plays in NJUG's work. A water-man by trade, with an impressive CV of far-flung appointments, he is a natural diplomat who focuses on building relationships to effect change. Today, he provides a sneak preview of the message that will be going out to politicians over the next few months: streetworks need consistency, profes- sionalism and equal representation for utilities and local authorities to minimise time spent in the road and cost to consumers. Could this mean a streetworks commis- sioner, as already exists in Scotland? Watch this space. As Gallienne is quick to point out, streetworks are going to have a bigger and bigger impact on the nation's roads and, by extension, everyone who uses them. "We're looking at a very, very significant infrastructure programme being delivered by utilities. Meanwhile, we're looking at a massive population increase – 73 million people by 2035 according to the Armitt report, which when you think about it, is not that far away in planning terms. We're told by the Department for Transport that we're going to have a 43 per cent increase in traffic volumes by 2040; we have significant pres- sures from increased housing build, increased economic growth, and all of these things are placing pressure on the road and streetworks. So there's going to be an increased amount of streetworks activity, but there's also going to be increased population and road usage." The potential for disruption is huge, which is why, for Gallienne, minimising road occupation is the name of the game. "We have to find better, smarter, more effec- tive ways of delivering streetworks – innovation is fun- damental. The other fundamental is collaboration and co-operation between highway authorities and utilities." A common joke in streetworks is that Heineken got it right with their tongue-in-cheek television advert depict- ing contractors of all types sharing one hole in the road.