Councils could make millions from road works

Jul 3 2003 By Peter Jackson, The Journal

Alastair Campbell's appearance before a House of Commons committee last week inevitably attracted a great deal of coverage.

Sadly it seems to have diverted attention from the proceedings of another committee, whose findings would probably be of greater interest to the general public - the travelling public at any rate.

On Wednesday the Select Committee on Transport issued a report on the state of our roads and it makes interesting reading.

No honestly it does.

I have remarked before how it seems impossible to make a road journey of any distance in this country without being delayed by teams of men who have taken it upon themselves to dig holes in the road - usually the same stretch of road over and over again - and how this must be costing the British economy billions. Now I'm vindicated. The Transport Select Committee reveals that one third of all road funding is now spent on "temporary patch and mend maintenance." Road surface conditions are worse than in 1997 and every year before this since records began in 1977. The Government is committed to eliminating the backlog of road maintenance by 2011, which is just about when the trains will be running on time.

But I have my doubts whether this will be achieved. Transco has been told by the Health and Safety Executive to replace all iron gas mains - which make up half its distribution network - within 30 metres of a property within the next 30 years and the water utilities have a similar programme of renewal.

The Select Committee proposes strengthening local authority powers and extending the period before which a dug-up stretch of road can be dug-up again from one year to two years. It's news to me that there's a one year protection period. There are roads in my neck of the woods which seem to be dug up on the same principle that the Forth Bridge is painted.

Something is clearly not working somewhere. Since 2001 councils have had the power to fine utilities up to £2,000 for every day they overstay their welcome among the bollards.

The Select Committee calculated that in 2001/02 the electricity, gas, telecom and water companies were responsible for 204,100 days of overrun, which could have cost them just over £73m.

What were they actually charged? Just £4.8m. And what have they paid? Only £595,650.

In the words of the Select Committee: "There is an unacceptably large discrepancy between the overrun charges that could be levied, those that are actually invoiced and those which have, to date, been paid."

It seems to me that those of us who are Council Tax payers and drivers should start asking our councillors some hard questions.