Warwick Ward Councillors got straight back to work following the election with a walkabout with local resident concerned about the state of some roads in the area. We had a very interesting discussion about the differences between TfL managed roads (red lined on the road) and those looked after by the Council (yellow lined). They inspected a number of roads across the ward and were surprised to find how bad the south side of Warwick Square had become following remedial work only undertaken in the last year or so. The head of Highways took that back to have rectified.
Westminster Council Leader and local Warwick Ward Councillor, Nickie Aiken, commented: “It was a fascinating walkabout with our Head of Highways. One of my bugbears is the number of times the same street is dug up over a short time period by different companies. The junction of Belgrave Road and Warwick Way is one excellent example. I have asked the Council Chief Executive to produce a protocol to ensure we better manage, as far as possible, how often and when our streets are dug up and hopefully co-ordinate so that utility companies liaise and agree proper timetabling. A road should only need to be dug up once rather than numerous times.”
Many residents share our concerns that utility companies who dig up our streets don’t always reinstate them to the high standards we all expect. Unfortunately statutory powers stop the Council from refusing permission for utilities to carry out work and prevent them from trying to recover damages or costs for shoddy reinstatement works. Successive governments have not addressed this issue fully.
Westminster was the first local Authority to introduce a Permit Scheme for utility works in 2010 but this only enables the Council to require them to change timing/date or methodology of works. It cannot refuse permission to work, only ask that they defer, bring forward or use different ways of working. The Permit Scheme does require the utilities to pay a fee for each Permit but these are set by statute and only cover the cost of processing the request.
