Herts County Council calls for higher fines for utility companies’ road works

Hertfordshire’s highways authority has asked the Government for the power to impose higher fines on utility companies that “get away with poorly planned, poorly managed and poorly finished roadworks”.

Since the start of April 2022, Hertfordshire County Council has issued more than 10,000 fines amounting to almost £1 million to utilities such as Affinity Water, UK Power Networks, Cadent Gas and Thames Water for carrying out unauthorised roadworks (£300) or breaching permit conditions (£80).

In a letter from County Hall, Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst, HCC’s executive member for highways, has told Transport Secretary Heidi Alexander that these low levels of penalties are “not a meaningful disincentive for multi-million-pound utility companies, many of whom appear to view such fines as simply the cost of doing business rather than an incentive to improve”.

A planned doubling of these fines was due to happen this summer. The letter asks the minister to review the amount utilities can be fined for non-compliance and to change the rules around fines and inspections so that councils can provide a stronger incentive to the companies to manage their roadworks.

It also asks the Government to give local highways authorities the power to charge utility companies for inspecting their covers on roads and pavements and fining them if they fail to repair faulty ones.

The Liberal Democrat-controlled council says the majority of the 61,000 sets of roadworks carried out on Hertfordshire’s highways network each year are done so to “high standards” by utilities – but the unnecessary disruption that poor-quality and overrunning work leads to causes daily problems for residents and businesses.

Cllr Giles-Medhurst said: “I know how hard our network management teams work to co-ordinate works across the county, but some roadworks are poorly managed by utility companies.

“When they fail to implement road closures and temporary traffic lights in the agreed ways and at the agreed times, it’s our residents and businesses that suffer.”

On average there are 61,082 sets of roadworks on Hertfordshire’s roads each year and 56% of these (34,500) are carried out by utility companies.

In the last three financial years (2022-23 to 2024-25) HCC has issued 9,241 fines amounting to £877,880. Since April 1, the start of the current financial year, 1,078 fines totalling £105,160 have been issued. Repeat fines for the same offence cannot be issued.

THE LETTER IN FULL

Dear Secretary of State – As the newly elected Executive Member for Highways and Transport at Hertfordshire County Council, I am writing to raise serious concerns about how current regulations allow utility companies carrying out work on our roads to get away with poorly planned, poorly managed and poorly finished roadworks.

The unnecessary disruption this leads to is causing daily problems for our residents and businesses, and too often it falls to local councils, and therefore local taxpayers, to put right.

Frustratingly, the current regulations only allow us to fine utility companies £80 for breaching permit conditions and just £300 for carrying out unauthorised roadworks.

This is not a meaningful disincentive for multi-million-pound utility companies, many of whom appear to view such fines as simply the cost of doing business, rather than an incentive to improve.

• In the short term, we would welcome a confirmation that the planned doubling of these fines, which was due to happen this summer, will go ahead in the near future.

• In the longer term, we would urge you to review the value of fines we are able to issue to ensure they are at a level that will actually serve as an incentive for utility companies to plan and implement their roadworks efficiently and to a high standard.

With the cost of delivering a highway service under significant pressure and with inflationary challenges as well, updating charges and penalties is long overdue and we feel that placing these powers into the hands of local democratically elected representatives makes sense.

I was surprised and frustrated to find that local authorities have no power to fine utility companies for failing to repair covers in the pavement or road. These can pose a significant hazard to pedestrians and road users, and while we can issue a defect notice, we have no power to charge or fine companies and therefore no way to encourage them to fix these quickly.

We carry out over 5,000 inspections of utility company equipment each year, but over 80% of these are follow-up inspections on faults we have already reported to the utility companies but which they have failed to fix.

It is our belief that being able to charge for such inspections or being able to fine for defective apparatus could massively improve performance, improving public safety and reducing costs to the taxpayer.

• We would therefore ask you to amend section 81 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 so that local authorities can levy fines against utility companies that fail to maintain street apparatuses or otherwise undertake a satisfactory job.

While I appreciate attempts have been made to improve the powers that we as the highway authority have, the changes introduced by your predecessor to the Code of Practice for Inspections in April 2023 have unfortunately reduced our ability to manage utility company road works on our highways network.

The changes include combining inspection charges for defective reinstatements, with the charges being capped at two cycles. As a result, utility companies are no longer liable for further financial penalties for long-term defects.

In our experience it is not uncommon to have defects that remain in place for several months and, without being able to levy further penalties, there is little incentive for utility companies to complete these works in a timely manner.

Additionally, whilst we support the principle of the performance-based sample inspection regime which the 2023 Code of Practice introduced, we are concerned that an unintended consequence has been that utility companies are able to hide local failure rates behind national averages.

• We would ask that you review the Code of Practice for Inspections to ensure that there is a significant incentive for utility companies to fix defects in their work quickly and efficiently

• The highway authority should have the power to increase inspection rates based on local failures and not be constrained by better performance in another region.

I, along with officers, would be willing to host a visit to view some of the issues on the ground here in Hertfordshire should your diary permit and I look forward to your comments on the issues raised above.

Cllr Stephen Giles-Medhurst OBE, Executive Member Highways and Transport, Hertfordshire County Council