RHS Garden Wisley: Roadworks

Lord Evans of Rainow Excerpts

Tuesday 1st April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I am not sure whether the procedures are appropriate, but I will go away and get the department to look at them in order to see whether they are appropriate.

[Lord Evans of Rainow (Con)]

My Lords, the RHS is clearly very well represented in this place, and rightly so, but perhaps I might put in a good word for rural communities, and businesses in rural communities where you have road and lane closures. The public and business see these roads that are closed, but there is no indication of when they will reopen and, although the roads are closed, there is no work or activity being done during the road closure. So I have a suggestion. When the local authority planning department or the highways department closes the road, it could put an indication of when the work will be completed and, if it cannot do that, it could give a telephone number that the public could phone to find out why not.

[Lord Hendy of Richmond Hill (Lab)]

I will not go down the cones hotline route—that did not seem to be a tremendous success. That point is well made. It is a continued frustration for drivers of all sorts that apparently unattended road works last for so long. The power to levy lane rental was started in London and it is rolling out. That is a way in which local authorities can put pressure because, frankly, they are not usually highway works but utility works, and the number of utility works that are left open for a long time is legion. So there is a point there and lane rental is one of the solutions to it.