MP urges Commons to collectively ‘can the cones’ during slow roadworks

Mark Francois suggested councils should be able to charge a lane rental fee to utilities firms, because in many cases there “is a lack of any palpable sense of urgency whatever to get the job done”.

The Conservative former local government minister, who is the MP for Rayleigh and Wickford in Essex, also suggested authorities should be able to refuse roadworks if they would cause “unacceptable disruption” to motorists.

Mr Francois told the Commons his county was “the most dug-up county in Britain” three years ago, in line with Freedom of Information requests by Bill Plant Driving School, which identified Essex as the roadworks capital of the UK, with 77,423 cases in a year – ahead of Staffordshire (52,871) and Cardiff (43,252).

He said on Monday: “Roadworks can take place for a variety of reasons. Sometimes utility companies are carrying out repairs or maintenance, or broadband providers laying new fibre, or property developers connecting new estates to the energy grid.

“In many cases, however, the common denominator is a lack of any palpable sense of urgency whatever to get the job done, regardless of the inconvenience which is caused to the travelling public.”

Introducing the Roadworks (Regulation) Bill, using the Ten Minute Rule, Mr Francois said his proposal would “give local highways authorities such as Essex County Council much stronger powers to control the granting of permits to anyone who wanted to dig up the highway network, which is a critical weakness in the current arrangements”.

He said “the Bill would allow refusal on the grounds of causing unacceptable disruption and would materially strengthen the hand of councils to negotiate much tighter conditions, including stricter deadlines, when granting permits so that companies would hopefully be prevented from overrunning in the first place”.

He said the draft law would “mandate highway authorities to take all practicable steps to deconflict roadworks in their areas to prevent multiple works in the same neighbourhood from leading to near-gridlock, especially during peak periods (and impose) much stricter procedures on highway authorities that give out the permits and it would also seek to prevent the same stretch of road from being dug up multiple times in short succession by different companies”.

On penalties, Mr Francois pointed to existing fines for companies responsible for overrunning roadworks, of a maximum £5,000 a day for the first three days on the most traffic-sensitive streets, followed by £10,000 a day.

“They are hardly likely to be a deterrent to major utility companies or housing developers, some of whom just accept them on the rare occasions they’re actually levied as a cost of doing business,” he said.

“The Bill would significantly increase the penalties for overrunning beyond the schedule agreed when the permit was first granted.

“Persistent offenders could be fined up to 10% of their annual corporate turnover which should make even the most high-handed company sit up and listen.

“Another related solution is lane rental, whereby companies must pay per day to carry out roadworks. This gives them a clear financial incentive to be efficient but at present it only applies to a very limited number of selected roads.”

Roads minister Lilian Greenwood was in the chamber as Mr Francois continued: “This is not a partisan issue. It’s something which all members of Parliament and, even more importantly, I hope, their constituents, can hopefully agree on.

“So let us collectively ‘can the cones’ and keep the traffic flowing as much as we practically can.”

The Bill, which Mr Francois tried to introduce during the last Parliament, will come before MPs again on July 11 next year but is unlikely to become law without Government support.