A Solution to Roadworks?
As expected the part closure of Victoria Arch has caused total chaos in Woking for almost a week now - and it will continue for at least month. Roadworks have unfortunately become part and parcel of traveling.. but wait, has someone found a solution to the problem? Roadworks, or more specifically the lack of coordination or publicity about them is what residents write to me the most about. Sadly utilities companies have a legal right to dig up the roads - until that right is taken away or at least limited, we will continue to face mass disruption. What’s more - locally in Surrey the County Council gets notices of almost 40,000 separate roadworks each year, but they don’t have enough people to monitor or advertise them. London has already done so, and Kent is planning to - introduce roadwork permits, where a utility company buys a permit from the local council before they dig up any road. If a company started digging up a road without a permit they can be fined £5,000 and £2,500 could be forfeited if a roadwork that breaks the rules of their permit. All this would force utilities companies to think carefully before any work is done - and make sure roadworks are carried out as quickly as possible. All that sounds great, so what’s the catch? Surrey County Council would only have to do 2 things: 1) Ensure that no roadwork occurs without a permit and that all roadworks with a permit stays to the rules in that permit. Although the Council itself maybe worse off by employing a few more people to watch the utilities companies - that cost would more than be saved by the wider county economy not being disrupted by unnecessary roadworks. 2) County Hall would have to ask the Government for these new powers. Surrey Council has a bad habit of not talking to the Government - they failed to apply for new powers under the Sustainable Communities Act, that could have meant for example Surrey could have kept business rates generated in the county rather than them being spent centrally. So it’s true, there is a better way of handling roadworks - but we need those in authority to have the vision to reach out for the new solutions out there in the wider world outside County Hall. I won’t be holding my breath.
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