Bucks Council names and shames utility firms and announces new roadworks crackdown

The authority has agreed to apply for a London-style lane rental scheme to allow it to charge companies for occupying busy roads during peak hours.

Cabinet agreed on Monday morning to pursue the powers, which it is hoped will reduce traffic by deterring companies such as Thames Water from setting up highly disruptive roadworks which cause drivers misery.

Council leader Martin Tett said he spent part of his weekend dealing with the ‘unauthorised’ closure of a road in his ward of Little Chalfont and Amersham Common, which he said caused ‘enormous aggravation’.

He told the cabinet meeting: “They dug it up. They didn’t have a permit. They didn’t have permission. They hadn’t told us. Nothing was being displayed.

“I’ll name them and shame them. It’s Cadent Gas. They should not have done that, and they will be fined. We need to make sure that we have greater control over these because they drive residents crazy.”

The council receives around 60,000 applications each year requesting permission to work on the county’s roads.

Cabinet’s decision on Monday saw members agree to submit an application to the government to implement the lane rental scheme.

If approved, it would give the council powers to charge those working on key roads, at the busiest times, up to £2,500 a day to occupy the most sensitive parts of the highway network.

It is claimed this would better coordinate roadworks and make them more efficient, while also encouraging behavioural changes in the industry, reducing congestion, and improving journey times and reliability.

The scheme would complement the council’s existing permit scheme and would only apply to selected roads, not the whole of the county.

Thomas Broom, the cabinet member for climate change and environment, told Monday’s meeting that Thames Water leaves lanes on some roads closed when it does not need to.

He said: “Closed for five days at a time only for Thames Water to turn up and do half a day’s work in the middle of it but leave the traffic management in place.

“It is quite clearly because Thames Water thinks it can make a marginal efficiency on basically paying those different companies to come in at different times and set everything up.”

He said the lane rental scheme would give the council the ability to levy ‘proper financial consequences’ on utility firms.

Councillor Tett told the meeting he would also ‘name and shame’ Affinity Water who he said regularly get applications for works turned down.

He told the meeting: “They simply declare it an emergency and open it up without permission and a permit.”