Utility Week - authoritative, impartial and essential reading for senior people within utilities, regulators and government
Issue link: https://fhpublishing.uberflip.com/i/818772
10 | 5TH - 11TH MAY 2017 | UTILITY WEEK Utility Week Live 2017 Penalties, permits and incentives With streetworks on the rise, how can utilities and local authorities best collaborate? U tilities opened the road 2.5 million times last year – up from 2.2 mil- lion in 2015, according to the latest ALARM (Annual Local Authority Road Maintenance) survey, which is carried out by the Asphalt Alliance. As streetworks continue to spiral in line with popula- tion growth and infrastructure demand, ministers have decided to act. This summer, the government is due to kick off a review of how its system for issuing permits to utilities is working. Ministers are acting because the volume of roadworks being carried out by utilities continues to grow. And these pressures are only likely to intensify during the next few years with the population projected to grow to 76 million by 2047. First a quick history lesson. The legisla- tive framework governing roadworks dates back to the 1991 Traffic Management Act (TMA), introduced by John Major's govern- ment as part of a broader initiative to cut traffic congestion, the highlight of which was the much mocked "cones hotline". Under the TMA, utilities only had to give highways authorities notice that they wanted to do works. By the early noughties, the number of companies allowed to dig up roads had ballooned to more than 150, caus- ing a "significant growth" in the levels of disruption caused by such works, according to a recent report by the House of Commons Library. The then-Labour government beefed up highways authorities' powers over street- works. These included allowing councils to issue permits for where and when works could take place and longer embargoes to protect repeatedly dug up streets. Where a permit scheme is in operation, a utility has to book the street for a specified period. Highways authorities can attach con- ditions on how the work is carried out and how long it should last. Since 2012, councils have been free to introduce permit schemes without having to secure the approval of the Department for Transport first. Councils have also gained powers to introduce lane rental schemes to discourage work on busy roads during daytimes (see box, right). The permit regime is by no means univer- sal even now. Across the whole of the South West, no authorities have gone down the permit route. Nigel Myers, network expan- sion head of streetworks at Virgin Media, says that out of the 174 highways authorities where his company works, just over half (96) operate a permitting system. Steve Burley, streetworks strategy and compliance manager at Anglian Water, says the permit regime can be helpful. "There is more co-ordination and communication with highways. Instead of us just putting in a notification and doing the job they come back to us if they want to change dates." Streetworks at Utility Week Live