Water, gas and electricity firms could be forced to pay nearly £5m a year to dig up Greater Manchester’s roads in a bid to cut traffic congestion.
Utility companies would face a bill of up to £240 for a permit every time they want to go below the road surface.
The region’s 10 councils could become the first in the country to set up such a scheme. It follows years of misery for motorists fed up with roadworks causing delays and diversions.
Firms whose roadworks over-run would also be hit with fines under the proposals, which were being discussed by the Association of Greater Manchester Authorities today. Similar schemes exist in some parts of London and in Kent, but this would be the first time councils have joined forces to monitor roadworks being carried out in a region.
Comment: Permit system is the right way to go
Pele Bhamber, head of highways at Manchester council, said: “ It would help to ease congestion and ensure smooth and efficient movement of traffic during roadworks across Greater Manchester.”
But utilities companies criticised the plan. Les Guest of the National Joint Utilities Group, which represents the region’s biggest firms, said: “Unfortunately, Greater Manchester’s scheme does not focus on the most congested roads and as such we are concerned that it is unlikely to be as effective in tackling the unfortunate disruption that essential works by utilities can sometimes cause.”
It is thought the scheme could generate £4.9m a year in the first three years, but councils would not be able to make any profits. It is understood any surplus from fees and fines – which could be up to £84,000 in the first year – would be ploughed back into road improvements and pothole repairs.
Council leaders would have to seek approval from Transport Secretary Philip Hammond. The scheme could be up and running by September.
The M.E.N. understands that the councils’ own highways departments will also have to apply for permits, but will not have to pay any fees or fines if they over-run.
Utility firms currently have to give notice that they are planning to dig up roads in the region, but don’t have to pay any fees. It would also be the first time a single register of roadworks had been drawn up in Greater Manchester, which highways bosses believe would help traffic management in the region.
Sean Corker, from the Drivers’ Alliance, said: “ This is a step in the right direction.”
Coun Pat Karney, Manchester council’s city centre spokesman, said: “Companies digging up the roads and not leaving their work in proper order is the number one complaint by residents in the city centre. It’s long overdue that utility companies are subjected to scrutiny and an examination of their behaviour.”
Comment: Permit system is the right way to go
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ashton new road is about as treacherous as it can possibly get, talk about pot holes any cyclist is risking their lives riding down that road and for a car dodging the 6" holes in the road is like a slalom course!!!
What about the telephones, are they also included? They also dig up the roads to lay ducts.
oil pipeline, cable TV and telephone companies are not included in the list, oh dear; ommission by who>?
It's about time they did something like this. I've driven up a stretch of road in Salford that has been dug up 7 times in the last 12 months. It's also these utility companies who are plaguing drivers by causing potholes through their "slap-dash" techniques of relaying the road surface.
The easiest way to deal with that problem would be to insist that all utility companies who dig the road up should have to resurface the entire piece of road.
Sadly, all this will do is increase premiums that customers pay for utilities
This is just one typical example but one morning, traffic queued back to Ardwick from the Mancunian Way which was completely gridlocked. It took 45 minutes to get to Regent Road where the jam was caused by workmen inspecting a drain, and had one lane closed off. Now why did they have to do that at 7.30 am? Why could they not wait until say 9.00am when most people would have got to work? Why is their work infinitely more important than that of tens of thousands of others? These are the obvious questions that road-users have, including the bus travellers.
good e.g of gm authorities working together under the new combined authority powers. definitely welcome and good to see positive steps being made.
Not quite sure how a fee of £240 is going to change anything. The roads will still be dug up because the work still needs doing. IS this not just a money making scheme by MCC. Do we really think UU dig up a road and take longer than planned for the sake of it. Every day they are late they are paying staff, hire of machines, fencing etc. It's in UU's own interest to finish the work ASAP.
If there is an issue of co-ordination then just get MCC to work mre efficiently and cross reference each application to dig up a road on the system to see if any coincide. If the road is not put back in accordance with standards then that is MCC at fault for not checking it, again no need for an extra fee, just need MCC to do their job properly.
It might be an idea to have special permits on very busy road where the companies could only carry out the work at night or weekends. I know in the long run we would all have to pay for this through the businesses paying extra for staff to work unsociable hours but it may be worth it.
And those same Utilities send bills to council and to you and me,
Do you think they will go up or down?
No wonder it's so expensive, the councils are not allowed to make any profit, but they are so inefficient it costs ten times as much as it would if the private sector was allowed to run it. Oldhams figures show a projection for each worker to issue just two permits a week!
Equally we can't expect things to be any better than they are now. Council departments aren't exactly shinning paragons of competence, and at the end of all this all that will have been acheived is yet another layer of incomptent inefficient maladministration, and guess whose going to end up paying for it all!
Your trying to tell us that at the moment they don't pay the council anything?! Get this plan in action!
Who do you think the utility companies will pass this additional to??
Please could I put in my application for the role of Co-Ordinator for this? The scheme's a good idea, but seemingly with over £4.8m disappearing into the costs of the project, I know which side of the budget I want to be...
Great news, make them pay a daily rate also as how many roadworks do you see with no body working ! they leave them for days, weeks when they should only take the very minimum time to complete. It will also make the utilities work together so when one fills in a hole a few weeks later another digs it up again.
Another stealth tax, Labour just can't help themselves. Who will ultimately pay for these permits and fines, we will, via increased utility bills.
What a great idea our energy bills would then be increased to pay the fines........derrrr!
who gets the monies for the £240 permit, a bit pointless if its emergency repairs, because if they charge the utilities company it will be added to our bills !! another no brainer to rip us off. sorry just reread the story "but councils would not be able to make any profits" what the hell do we council tax for !! another stealth tax !! Rip off Britain. in a different guise.
Hopefully it might encourage them to work together (sharing the same excavation) so that one hole is dug and not three or four. Share the cost of the permit?
And where do you suppose these utilities companies will recoup their costs, from the consumer of course, It's a stealth tax dreamed up by the councils in the wake of the failed con charge
Operatives working for these companies pay a retension on payments between 5-10% of their costs, this money is held by the main contractors and often is not repaid after final completion of works. Many of the problems with roads is caused by poor re-instatement methods that the operatives have to work to. Cable TV is possibly one of the biggest culprits of this kind of road failure due to the fact that they have always insisted that the structure of the road they work on be changed.
They did this by their insitance of following guidelines for new roads on areas where roads have different sub structures and not re-instating like for like. This method causes the trenches to become drainidge channels affecting the trench or the surface around it, often causing the trench or the area around it to subside and break up.Yet these are the companys that have kept money from workers and are being allowed exemption from the new charges, why?
The council staff rarely checked on these works and relied on management by agents like Laings or Bovis to inspect jobs on behalf of companys like Nynex.
Now somebody has decided that something has to be done, and in some instance I agree, but it has been decided to charge it to major utility company`s like UU as they are the easy target as the money will come from the public who need their essential services whereas Telecoms and the like have to build up a customer base.
Also as somebody else has posted as a hole UU operatives are mainly sub contract workers and time is money to them and therefore they do try to be as efficient as they can.
Many of the holes you see left for days or weeks are usualley left by the companys exempt from charge after damaging essential services and UU have attended to make repair ,but the responsibilty for the re-instatment lies with the company that caused the original damage as that work has a guarrantee. And no I do not work for UU but I have worked for the others.
it might make them think more about planning but they'll only pass the cost on to us so the public would be hit in the end, not the fat cats
So, people moan when there is congestion because of roadworks and people moan when attempts are made to prevent it in the only way which generally works - attaching financial costs. Just goes to show you can't please all the people.
This is a scheme which will apply to the whole of Greater Manchester not merely Manchester as many correspondents seem to believe.
Indeed, the venerable Pat Karney seems, making his usual comment on anything and everything, to think that its just a Manchester city centre problem.
Any chance of charging the Bus Companies for the use of bus lanes?
Does MCC really believe the giant Utilitiy Companies will change the way they do things because they are faced with purchasing a £240.00 permit to work and as for fines for overunning completion dates this will only result in UC's increasing completion dates by days or weeks as a contingency to avoid paying fines and as posted many times below they will recoup fines buy increasing prices for the utilities they supply.
Utility Companies are always in a win win sitution