Crackdown on utility companies that leave North Yorkshire roads in a poor state

A highways authority experiencing a huge cut in road maintenance funding has signalled its determination to crackdown on utility companies that fail to properly restore roads after digging them up.

A meeting of North Yorkshire County Council’s executive this week heard shoddy reinstatement of roads by sewage, water, electricity, gas and communications firms was responsible for “well over half” of potholes across the country’s largest road network.

The meeting discussed ways to get utility firms to “sharpen their pencils” and improve performance.

One idea was to introduce road metering whereby firms would be charged according to the amount of time they spent on site, meaning putting right poor workmanship would prove more costly.

The Department of Transport announced this year North Yorkshire County Council would receive £37 million to maintain roads in 2021/22, £12.6 million less than the previous year. Whitehall bosses estimated the £16.5 million earmarked specifically for potholes in the county could repair 329,000 cavities.

The funding announcement came two years after the Department for Transport launched a consultation to help councils tackle the potholes by making utility companies ensure the safety of roads for up to five years. However, it has emerged the proposal has been postponed due to fears of creating “unintended consequences” for utility firms.

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Street Works UK, a trade association representing utility companies, has said the five-year rule would be unnecessary and that the sector’s roadworks performance is much better than local authorities.

The debate has also seen the RAC Foundation describe potholes as “the bane of road users’ lives” and call for utility firms to be held responsible for the quality of their road repairs.

‘Utility firms must be held to account’

Nevertheless, Councillor Stanley Lumley, a Conservative representing Pateley Bridge and chairman of the authority’s transport, economy and environment overview and scrutiny committee, told the executive there were clear variances in the condition of roads across North Yorkshire and utility firms needed to be held to account.

“It’s a great shame that we invest a lot of money in maintaining these roads and then a utility company can come along and do a poor reinstatement and that results in a bad reflection on the county.”

Councillor Don Mackenzie, a Conservative representing Harrogate Saltergate and the council’s executive member for access, said he believed well over half the county’s potholes were caused by poor remedial works following excavations. But he stressed only three per cent of the county’s principle roads were in need of repair.

“Unfortunately there’s nothing we can do to stop the utility companies breaking into our highways. They have a statutory right to access their equipment, replace or repair it.

“It is something that we must monitor very closely and is something that I personally am very concerned about. We shall ensure that we continue to improve the quality of those reinstatements.”

Cllr Mackenzie said the council had introduced a roadworks permits scheme a few years ago, which had generated funding to employ people to monitor utility firms’ work and led to financial penalties being imposed on utility companies for poor workmanship.