Efforts underway to stop streets being repeatedly dug up
Hammersmith and Fulham Council has begun a three-month consultation aimed at trying to prevent disruption on the roads caused by uncoordinated street works.
The consultation could lead to the introduction of the London Permit Scheme, which would ensure that any company wanting to dig up the roads causes as little disruption to road-users as possible.
The scheme is part of London Mayor Boris Johnson's initiative to improve traffic flow in the capital.
“Londoners are fed up with being stuck in queues while the traffic cones and work sites litter the streets without a workman in sight. Currently utility companies can dig up the roads with reckless abandon,” said Johnson.
It is estimated there are around one million holes dug in London's roads each year, with little or no regulation and currently, the more than 100 utilities are only required to give short notice of upcoming works. 90 percent of works are carried out with less than ten days' notice to the highway authority.
As well as H&F, Transport for London and 17 other London boroughs will also be involved in setting up the scheme, which could be in place in late 2009 at the earliest. The scheme aims to ensure street works are carried out as quickly as possible and at the same time as other necessary works in the same location, wherever practical.
David Brown, Managing Director of Surface Transport at TfL said: “This scheme will help to bring an end to the situation where the same stretch of road is dug up repeatedly by different companies.
“Organisations will have to properly plan and coordinate their works with others and display notices explaining what they are doing and when they will be finished, and our job, along with the other highway authorities, will be to ensure that this takes place.”
More than 500 organisations will be given the opportunity to feed back on the proposals for the scheme over the next three months before an application is submitted to the Department for Transport for approval.
Under the scheme, applications to carry out major planned works which are expected to last 11 days or more, will require three months' notice, while emergency works will require a permit application to be made within two working hours of the start of the works.
The transport authority granting the permit will take the environmental impact as well as the potential disruption to traffic into account.
Transport authorities may refuse a permit if it considers the works can be completed more speedily, or if the dates and times clash with other proposed activities in the area. Alternative dates will then be offered.
12 March 2009
|