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Norfolk County Council netted nearly half a million pounds from work on Norfolk's roads last year, after slapping fines on companies for getting behind schedule. It also earned almost £400k through charging companies for other breaches of permit conditions. FINES FOR WORKS THAT OVERRAN The council has revealed it collected almost £479,000 in fines because work by utilities companies at more than 300 sites took longer than the organisations had permits for.
Collectively these companies overran for a whopping 1,771 days - equivalent to almost five years. Norfolk County Council collected almost £500,000 in fines for overrunning work (Image: Denise Bradley) If companies fail to complete work on time the county council has the power to charge a daily fine of between £250 to £10,000. The figures relate to what are known as streetworks - planned, permitted work on roads done by utilities companies such as telecoms, water, gas and electricity companies.
Such work can include road or lane closures and traffic management, such as traffic lights. The figures do not include what are legally known as roadworks, which is work promoted by the county council as a highway authority, such as road improvement schemes . PENALTIES FOR PERMIT BREACHES The council operates a permit system for streetworks.
As well as receiving £1.2m in fees for the granting of streetworks permits, it also received a further £380,000 from fines last year for permit breaches by utility companies. READ MORE: Wymondham and Silfield suffer 'diabolical' roadworks Such breaches include working without a permit or not meeting conditions, such as traffic management requirements.
COUNCIL TAKES ACTION The council has taken companies which failed to meet permit conditions to court, and warned others could follow suit. Norfolk County Council's County Hall headquarters (Image: Mike Page) A county council report states: "Earlier this year a prosecution was brought against a utility working in Norwich whose works were found to be unsafe on several occasions. "The court gave fines totalling nearly £40,000.
"Another utility was also found to have numerous poorly signed and guarded works and despite the council's efforts, the utility would not engage in discussions to improve. "This resulted in our successful prosecution of 14 individual works." READ MORE: Roadworks in Station Road to add to Coltishall traffic woes Council officers have said they are prepared to take more enforcement action against organisations.
In a report which will come before members of the council's cross-party scrutiny committee on October 28, they state: "This may result in a high volume of prosecutions being taken forward this financial year." The issue of overrunning works was highlighted by Labour county councillor Mike Sands at a recent meeting of the Conservative-controlled cabinet at County Hall. Labour county councillor Mike Sands (Image: Archant) Mr Sands, who represents Bowthorpe division in Norwich, said: "The cabinet member for highways cannot have missed the consistent reports and complaints about the disruption being caused by road works that start with little notice despite not being urgent, insufficient information to local people and businesses or consultation on steps to mitigate the impact.
" He said there were: "Road closures that extend longer than required for the work that appear to result in utilities having roads closed for them when no work is being done." Graham Plant, Norfolk County Council cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure (Image: Norfolk County Council) Graham Plant, the council's cabinet member for highways, transport and infrastructure, said: "The performance of utilities is monitored and regular meetings take place to discuss the results. "Where permitting offences take place, the council can issue fines on the utility company.
3,662 fines were issued last year with penalties totalling over £380,000. "Where works take too long to complete, a different fine is issued - 313 instances last year with penalties of £478,000." Mr Plant said nearly 50,000 permits were issued last year, with conditions attached to help minimise disruption.
Utilities companies need to secure permits to carry out work on Norfolk's roads (Image: Denise Bradley) The council said it tries to coordinate work to minimise disruption, but that can prove difficult when emergency work is needed. It also attempted to get work done collaboratively, so more than one organisation carried out work at the same time, to reduce the impact. Officers said the income from the permit scheme paid for posts in the streetworks team, and any surplus was used on highway maintenance.
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