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The Council cannot stop a Statutory Undertaker digging up the road. They have a legal right to do so under the New Roads and Street Works Act, to maintain their existing pipes, cables etc, or to install new ones.
All the Statutory Undertaker has to do is to tell the Council about the work. For very minor works it just has to send the Council a daily list of where it’s working. For other works it has to give notice – the bigger the work the longer the notice – from 2 hours for emergency works to 28 days for planned works.
Legally neither the Council nor any Statutory Undertaker has a duty to tell people that the road is about to be dug up.
Although it might seem like a good idea for the Council to do it anyway, the scale of the problem is greater than most people realise. Each year the Council receives about 15,000 notices from Statutory Undertakers telling us of their intention dig up roads. Over 90% of these give less than seven days notice.
When large-scale works are planned, we get 28 days notice. In these cases we encourage the Statutory Undertaker involved to let local people know in advance, and where traffic disruption is likely, we try to put up signs alerting motorists.
Where Statutory Undertakers give us more advance notice we work closely with them to co-ordinate their works and plan publicity, but such cases are rare.
When we resurface a road we serve a special legal notice on all the Statutory Undertakers who work in Westminster. This prevents them from digging up the road for the next 12 months after we’ve finished the works.
Unfortunately there are exceptions for emergencies and for new services to customers. If we find works are taking place in a road where we have served a notice, all we can do is seek an assurance that the work falls into one of these categories.
In general Statutory Undertakers and their contractors don’t want to leave holes open any longer than they have to. It costs money to keep barriers and lights around holes, and they may be legally liable for any accidents.
There are some instances where holes have to be left open when there is no work going on.
Where gas has seeped into the ground, or into cable ducts. In these cases, it has to be allowed to escape into the open air over a period of time.
Where an undertaker finds that a piece of equipment like a special valve or bend on an old pipe needs to be replaced. In some cases this will not be available from stock and has to be specially made.
When a Statutory Undertaker is laying a new pipe or cable and comes across a previously unknown obstruction. There may be a delay while the obstruction is identified, and if necessary a new route is worked out.
Under current legislation, the only have to tell us the date they plan to start their works, although they may indicate the likely duration.
There is nothing that the Council can currently do legally to speed up the progress of the work, unless it is causing severe traffic disruption, and even then it is extremely difficult.
The government has recently announced that it intends to bring in legislation to enable Councils to chargeStatutory Undertakers that take too long to complete their work.
People have been digging holes in the road to lay pipes or cables for over 100 years. Records of what was done in the early days are poor or non-existent.
Although there are very sophisticated systems available to locate underground services, none of these is 100% accurate. Nobody can be absolutely certain of what’s there until they start digging.
Cellars and vaults are another big problem, because many of them extend under the pavement and the road, and accurate information on them is not always available.
All these things can combine to make work take longer than planned.
The Council has a duty to co-ordinate the work of Statutory Undertakers, but it can’t force them to work together.
We hold formal co-ordination meetings four times a year. Council staff responsible for road maintenance and new projects attend, together with representatives of the Statutory Undertakers and the Police.
There are two particular problems.
Telecommunications ("Cable") companies carry out much of the high-profile work in Westminster. This is a highly competitive business. Not surprisingly some cable companies are reluctant to reveal their forward plans, beyond their legal obligation to give us 28 days notice of larger works.
The government regularly licences new cable companies. Many of these immediately want to lay cables in Westminster, because it is such an important commercial area. Unfortunately this means digging up roads where other companies have recently finished works.
The Council has been successful in persuading some companies to work together and lay several cables in one trench, but it can only persuade, it cannot force them to do it.
When a company needs parking bays suspended to allow it to carry out works, it tells the Council its planned start and finish date for the works.
Unfortunately, sometimes the company fails to start on the planned date. If they tell us, we can change the parking suspensions accordingly, but if they don’t tell us we can’t. Similarly they often simply don’t tell us if they finish earlier than planned.
There are so many requests for parking suspensions that we can’t check every one to see if the work started and finished on time. We have to rely on the people who carry out the work to tell us of any changes.
Certain companies or public bodies have a legal right (under the New Roads and Street Works Act) to dig up roads in order to install new pipes, cables etc, or to maintain their existing ones. These are known as Statutory Undertakers.
In general these are companies that supply water, gas, electricity and telecommunications. There are a few others that are less obvious, for example London Underground, who need to gain access to underground tunnels etc.
Twenty years ago the position in Westminster was relatively simple, with the great majority of excavations being carried out by Thames Water, London Electricity, Eastern Gas and British Telecom. The main change has been brought about by the electronic revolution. The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) issues licences to new telecommunications (‘cable’) companies, granting them the status of statutory undertaker. Because of Westminster’s importance as a business centre most companies want to lay a cable network in the city as soon as they have been granted a licence. There are now 15 ‘cable’ companies able to work in Westminster, and we expect that the DTI will license more in the future.
This Act regulates the relationship between the Council and the Statutory Undertakers. Westminster Council is unhappy with the lack of control that this gives the Council, and has been pressing for a change in legislation to increase its control.
Most of the Statutory Undertakers do not carry out their works themselves, but use contractors to do the work. The contractors should display a board saying who they are, who they are working for and giving a contact phone number.
2008 Westminster City Council. Contact the Council
