Helping to reduce the impact of utility works in Surrey

How we’re trying to better coordinate utility works across the county

We know how frustrating roadworks are for our residents. So, we want to do all we can to improve journeys for people travelling around our county.

As well as the work our highways teams carry out to improve Surrey’s roads and pavements and repair emergencies, 72 works led by utility providers also start every day on Surrey’s busy road network. These include gas, water, energy and telecoms.

These are often classed as emergency works. This means that we, as the highways authority, do not have any legal powers to influence or stop these works. We also often don’t know about them until they have started and are negatively impacting our road users.

What can be done?

Last year, we set up a ‘Streetworks Taskforce’ with utility companies (gas, energy, water, and telecoms providers), to address the impact of emergency utility works, which often cause the most issues for drivers.

We wrote to Government to call on their support to change national ways of working. We asked that, where possible, advanced warning of emergency roadworks is shared with us as the local authority (as we also carry out our own roadworks), and local communities so they are forewarned. We hope this will mean roadworks can be coordinated wherever possible to reduce disruption on the road network.

Surrey County Council, as the highways authority, has also asked for other improvements. These include mandatory on-site signage for emergency works to explain delays and who is working on-site. This will enable residents to direct any queries to the right organisation.

Other improvements

As the highways authority, we’ve made some of our own improvements to help tackle congestion, including:

• 78% more inspections every month to ensure utility companies are working safely, legally, and to required standards (compared to two years ago)
• Almost 1 in 3 applications to work on our roads are refused. This is to ensure that, where we can legally influence utility works (those that are planned, not emergencies), only well-coordinated and necessary works take place
• 37% reduction in the days utility companies are working on Surrey’s roads
• Surrey is one of only four highway authorities in England to operate a Lane Rental Scheme. This charges utility companies for closures on the busiest roads at peak times. We do this to encourage providers to carry out their works at quieter times to decrease the burden on drivers. So far, Lane Rental Scheme has generated over £5.4million to fund local road improvements.
• Doing more to encourage simultaneous roadworks to reduce repeated disruption for residents

Find out more

More information on utility works is available on our website.

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