A potential change in health and safety legislation could lead to less road closures.
A meeting of Lincolnshire County Council’s Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee received an update from Angilan Water where it was said the water company had decreased the average time it had taken to complete roadworks.
But it was stated there’s only so much they, or any utility company, can do in rural areas due to the roads not being as wide.
Coun Jack Tyrrell, members for The Suttons, told the committee that workers had to allow 3.6 metres either side of works to carry out any repairs to roads.
He said that on smaller rural roads that meant that whole roads had to be closed, whereas if they were wider, only one part of the road had to be closed.
Coun Tyrrell also called for more collaborative work citing his experience in construction working on sewer systems and that recently roads were twice closed in Long Sutton on a market day, arguing the work could have been done on the same day.
“We’ve done it before where we put in our piping and you’ve (the county council) have gone over the top of us,” he said. “I really do think we ought to stretch that more and get more people involved.
“We’d only shut the road off once.
Ashley Behan, street works and permitting manager at Licnolnshire County Council, said: “We need to collaborate more and find those road mechanisms to do that.
“Lincs roads are rural and not overly wide. You might think you can get a car past but the health and safety regulations are really stringent.
“If something should happen none of us would want to try and justify that.
“The practice is currently being re-written. That might allow us to change.
“Road widths and regulation mean that a lot of the work Anglian Water do means it has to be closed.”
Committee members praised the water company for its improvements, 15 months after telling it to improve.
Mr Behan said that since then the number of works that required road closures inside three days had gone from 52 per cent to 71 per cent.
Despite increased on-site monitoring, the number of FPN offences identified for Anglian Water works reduced by 45 per cent throughout 2023/24.
According to the report, 70 per cent of the offences issued relate to ‘administrative’ breaches, which, although legislative violations, are unlikely to have a direct impact on road users.
Furthermore, since April 2023, Anglian Water has also reduced Section 74 overstay offences – where work continues after the agreed permit dates expire – by 75 per cent and has generally been providing more information to the public on immediate works.
“We recognise that there is still more work to do and we are working very closely together to continue those improvements,” said Mr Behan.
“We would like to see more collaboration, particularly around new development sites which are typically the most impactful from roadworks because of the number of utilities that need to work.”
