Roadworks: Rayleigh

Mark Francois Excerpts

Friday 13th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mark Francois (Rayleigh and Wickford) (Con)]

Madam Deputy Speaker, I thank you and Mr Speaker for granting me this Adjournment debate on a subject that, as you will see, is of pressing importance to many of my constituents.

It is good to see the Minister of State, Department for Transport, my hon. Friend the Member for Daventry (Chris Heaton-Harris), at the Dispatch Box to reply for Her Majesty’s Government. I have known him for many years. Ironically, I lobbied him very recently about the atrocious performance of Abellio Greater Anglia on the Southend to Liverpool Street line. However, as today’s debate is about roadworks, I will concentrate my remarks on those—but the rail line is not getting any better.

Let me give the background. Last autumn, Essex County Council’s Essex Highways granted three property developers, Barratt David Wilson, Countryside Properties and Silver City Estates, permission to begin digging up the roads in and around Rayleigh, all at the same time, in some cases on the day that schools resumed after the summer holidays. Unsurprisingly, that led to traffic chaos in and around Rayleigh, including in nearby Hullbridge. As the local MP, I had to intervene repeatedly with Essex Highways and all three developers to try to sort the situation out. Crucially, this included Countryside agreeing to lift its contraflows during the morning and evening rush hour on Rawreth Lane, and Barratt David Wilson working 24/7 in Hullbridge to finish the job.

After an autumn of severe disruption, the works finally concluded, and I held a summit in my Westminster office with Essex Highways, the developers, local councillors and residents’ groups, at which we all faithfully agreed that this could never be allowed to happen again. Crucially, we agreed that when further planned works took place in Rayleigh in the following year, it would be necessary to separate the works, and ideally lift the contraflows during morning and evening peaks, and during the school run, to make the situation liveable for local residents, even if it took longer to complete the works as a result.

However, a further meeting took place at Rochford Hundred golf club in February this year, at which Essex Highways and the developers agreed a new schedule of works, to commence in March, principally on the A129, London Road—a single carriageway that is one of the principal arteries in and out of Rayleigh. It now transpires that Essex Highways officers granted Silver City permission to work throughout March, seven days a week, from 7 am to 7 pm, with contraflows in place throughout that time—that is, they were not to be lifted during the morning and evening peak and the school run, as was previously suggested.

Moreover, Countryside was then told that it could work for three months on its much larger site from early April to late June, again from 7 am to 7 pm. In other words, the developers would be able to dig up one of the primary arteries in and out of Rayleigh for 12 hours every day for four months. Thereafter, Barratt David Wilson would begin work off Rawreth Lane to construct a new major roundabout. Some of that work can be undertaken offline, but there will still be weeks of disruption when the roundabout is connected to the main carriageway. Yet again, that work is permitted to be carried out from 7 am to 7 pm. For the avoidance of doubt, I declare that I am a resident in the Rawreth Lane area.

I am afraid to say that part of this has occurred because of a total lack of effective oversight by Essex Highways, which has clearly reneged on the commitments it gave me in my Westminster office prior to Christmas. Moreover, there appears to be an unhealthily cosy relationship between the highways officers and the developers, much of it based on first-name terms, with the county council failing my constituents in its regulatory duties to oversee the roadworks effectively.

As a result of those decisions, Silver City began its work early in March and, to cut a long story short, my constituents have gone up the wall. There have been extremely long tailbacks trying to get in and out of Rayleigh during the rush hour and the school run, with some constituents reporting journeys that would normally take about 15 minutes now taking well over an hour each way. In some cases, it is even worse. Businesses have suffered, with one small dance school having been put in real financial jeopardy because parents have cancelled lessons. Medical appointments have also been missed and children’s education has been interrupted.

No one undertook any strategic communications to warn my constituents of these four months of impending chaos until I posted a video on Wednesday evening on my Facebook page to explain to my constituents exactly what is going on. The Minister might like to know that that post has since been viewed by more than 24,000 people. Aside from perhaps coronavirus, this is currently the overwhelming topic of conversation in Rayleigh. Many residents have left comments, of which the following four stood out. Mr A said:

“Well done Mark. And thanks for the best efforts possible. It’s a shame it’s all about the fast profit for fat cat companies in construction, and the quick buck and fast turn over in more council tax, etc. Than the thought of others losing out from struggles to get to work or schools.”

Mr P said it is an

“Absolute joke of a system. How can we get them out of a job? It’s the only thing they will listen to. Enough is enough—crazy when a five minute journey takes 40 minutes.”

Ms B said:

“It’s completely unacceptable that these two works run consecutively. That in itself should not happen. Developers should be inconvenienced, not existing residents and our livelihoods…Developers in this situation should be forced to work nights irrespective of cost to them. As per usual, why is it the general public that appear to have more common sense than the idiots that make decisions”?

Lastly, Ms C said:

“24/7 working is a fantastic ethic to implement. Silver City should cover the cost for overtime or be fined if they don’t complete by a certain timeframe. I live on Little Wheatley Chase”—

one of the local roads—

“and I can tell you…the workmen don’t seem to be in any rush! Lots of cups of tea…smoking…slowly walking up and down whilst cars sit in queues. It is very distressing.”

There have been some instances of residents abusing the workmen. For the avoidance of doubt, I completely deprecate that behaviour, but that does give some idea of how frustrated local people have become. Yet again, I have had to intervene on behalf of my constituents to try to sort out this mess, which I was faithfully promised by Essex Highways would never happen again. In the last week I have had meetings in Westminster with the managing director of Silver City, the new corporate chief executive of Countryside and County Councillor Kevin Bentley, the current deputy leader of Essex County Council and cabinet member for infrastructure, including roads.

I asked both Silver City and Countryside if they would consider lifting the contraflows during the rush hour in order to make the disruption more bearable. I also asked Countryside, whose work site is a couple of hundred yards away from any inhabited dwelling, if it would consider working 24/7—as, indeed, Barratt David Wilson did in Hullbridge last year—in order to try to accelerate the works as much as possible. I regret to inform the Minister and the House that neither has been forthcoming. In the case of Silver City Estates, which is based in Rochford, I received a two-paragraph email, written with the grammar of an eight-year-old, effectively saying that it intended to carry on regardless. The company is clearly only interested in its own profits, and obviously does not give a damn about my constituents, who I hope would not want to buy its houses in return. This is the two-paragraph memo—I am ripping it up to show the House what I think of Silver City Estates.

Countryside, conversely, has written me several charming letters, admittedly saying that it would look into all this, but not actually promising to do anything at all. Given my experience of dealing with developers over nearly 20 years as an MP, particularly last autumn and this spring, I have reluctantly come to the conclusion that they generally do not give a damn about the disruption they cause to local communities, and that all they are really interested in is maintaining at least a 20% profit margin on house sales while keeping construction costs, including for labour and roadworks, to an absolute minimum.

I know that the Minister is not responsible for housing, but I think that one of the reasons that almost any major housing development in this country is met with hordes of placard-waving local residents is that they have come to realise the utterly hard-nosed attitude of the developers and the local traffic chaos that is likely to result if and when the houses are actually built. In fairness, that is a challenge for the whole house building industry, not just the three companies that I have highlighted today, but I throw it out there none the less, and will be interested to see whether any of the developers have the moral courage to reply.

When I met Councillor Kevin Bentley two days ago, he agreed that the situation was unacceptable and said that he would look again at Essex County Council’s process for giving consent to these proposals—not least as I understand that Essex County Council has not yet signed Countryside’s permits to legally allow it to commence the work. In other words, it has agreed in principle, but has not formally permitted it. County Councillor Bentley has now agreed to review the situation to see if the proposals can be altered, and I am very grateful to him for doing so. Silver City is clearly beyond the pale, but I do hope that Countryside might yet be reasonable, perhaps encouraged by Essex County Council, and might yet adopt some of the mitigating proposals that I have recommended before its work commences on the London Road in April. I shall certainly be keeping up the pressure on it to do so.

One thing that I have learned from this whole debacle is that the regulation of roadworks in this country is a mess. One of the great frustrations in modern life is queuing for ages to get through a contraflow on the highway to then discover that there is no one actually working on the site in the first place. The whole process is massively weighted in favour of the developers and the utility companies, at the clear expense of local residents and motorists. Indeed, Councillor Bentley has told me frankly that he would like to see the law changed to give highways authorities much greater powers to limit how and when people should be able to dig up the roads.

By sheer chance, after 19 years in this place, for the first time ever I got a placing in the private Members’ Bill ballot this year, and my Control of Roadworks Bill is now due for its Second Reading on Friday 12 June. I plan to publish a draft Bill—for consultation with interested parties in May—designed to materially speed up roadworks in this country and to fine heavily those who do not comply. I very much hope that Ministers in the Department for Transport might look favourably on this initiative, and see it as an opportunity to help to address one of the great banes of our everyday lives. I very much hope that the Minister will carry back to the Department my genuine desire to try to improve the situation for all concerned, and to promote a sense of urgency among anyone who tries to dig up our roads.

In summary, I had honestly hoped that lessons had been learnt from the chaos last autumn and that I would never again need to intervene like this. Nevertheless, now that these problems have arisen once again, I have sought to raise them in the House of Commons and, in so doing, to reflect the extreme frustration of many of my constituents at the whole way that this has been badly maladministered. I hope that County Councillor Kevin Bentley will now indeed act proactively to help sort this mess out, and that Countryside, and Barratt David Wilson after it, will adopt a more co-operative approach, even if it costs them money.

Finally, I hope to get legislation on to the statute book to codify the regulation of roadworks, which is currently spread across multiple pieces of legislation, into one clear and simple Bill that everyone can follow. That will be designed to ensure that when people do unfortunately have to dig up the roads, they will do so with a sense of urgency, rather than complacency, and with a determination to respect the local communities within which they are working. I earnestly hope that the Minister can offer me some comfort that in that aspiration I might yet receive Government support. Thank you for your patience, Madam Deputy Speaker.

[The Minister of State, Department for Transport (Chris Heaton-Harris)]

I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) for securing the debate. Having recently had a number of meetings with him about his constituents’ concerns about their rail service, I am pleased that this debate is about the roads. I am quite sure that, following his speech, members and officers of Essex County Council will take a much more pragmatic and hands-on approach to the issues he has raised.

I also congratulate my right hon. Friend on securing a private Member’s Bill—it is a lottery that I have won previously—and on the thoughts, views and ideas that he is clearly giving towards how the impact of roadworks on congestion can be reduced. I promise that my Department will work with him constructively on his Bill, and I look forward to seeing a draft in due course.

We all use our highways to travel every day, and how we manage them has a direct impact on everyone’s lives. Congestion, with all its causes, and the condition of our roads are recurring themes that the Government hear about regularly, so it is a clear focus of attention for my colleagues in the Department for Transport. That focus is only going to become more important as, over the coming years, the number of roadworks will increase as a result of new housing developments and in order to deliver the Government’s commitment that full-fibre and gigabit broadband will be available for every home and business across the UK as soon as possible. That will involve digging up a lot of roads.

We all want out road network to be improved, and my right hon. Friend will be pleased to have heard the commitment in Wednesday’s Budget that £2.5 billion will be available to fix potholes and to resurface roads in England over the next five years. We know that there will continue to be roadworks, but that does not mean that they should last any longer than is needed. We all want the services provided by utility companies, and we want them to maintain and improve their infrastructure, but we also know that there are over 2 million roadworks taking place in England each year, and that these result in about £4 billion of congestion costs. That is a nut that it is worth trying to crack.

There is a great deal of scope for works to be planned, managed and co-ordinated more effectively, and for the public to be told about when works are happening and warned about the impact they might have on their journeys. That is why the Government have taken a number of actions in recent years. We have invested over £10 million in the new street manager digital service, which will transform the planning, management and communication of roadworks. This new service will be used by all local authorities and utility companies from 1 April this year. From July we plan to publish open data on live and planned works for technology and sat-nav companies and app developers to develop products for road users so that they, in turn, can plan their journeys more effectively.

Street Manager will deliver many benefits, including data that can be used to monitor performance. It will support greater co-ordination, forward planning and more joint works. All local authorities, utility companies and their contractors will be able to have a single view of the street and visibility of the whole network, to plan and co-ordinate works for the benefit of road users. We also have a commitment to continue improving the service to ensure that it continues to meet users’ needs.

Street works permit schemes have been available for local authorities to operate since 2007. Those have proved to be a very effective way of managing and co-ordinating works. Authorities that operate schemes have also seen that road user satisfaction is much improved. We have strongly encouraged all authorities to introduce schemes, and almost every authority now has a scheme in place. Essex County Council has operated a scheme since 2015. We will continue to ensure that all authorities have schemes in place, and as a result, there will be greater consistency for the industry and benefits for all road users.

We will shortly publish an updated technical specification for reinstatements, which will improve quality and performance. Reinstatements are needed after works have been completed. That update will be the first since 2010, and it will support and allow greater innovation and improve quality and performance.

We announced in 2019 that local authorities can introduce lane rental schemes, which allow authorities to charge utilities up to £2,500 per day for works on the busiest roads at the busiest times. That is normally around 5% of the authority’s network. Charges encourage companies to move the location of their works, carry them out at less busy times, complete them as soon as possible or carry out joint works, which can attract discounts or charges that can be waived. Any surplus revenue can be spent by the authority on ways of reducing the impact of works on congestion. Two schemes are operating at the moment in Kent and on Transport for London’s network. Authorities that want to set up schemes can bid to the Secretary of State for approval, and we have issued bidding guidance on how they can do that.

We will continue our work and plan to look at other aspects of how to regulate roadworks, to see whether further improvements to those schemes can be made. For example, works start and stop notices at weekends, which are needed to give real-time updates to road users, do not need to be sent until 10 am the following Monday, and overrun charges do not currently apply at weekends. An amendment to legislation following a period of consultation, including within Government, would be needed to resolve that—indeed, my right hon. Friend might choose to look at that in his private Member’s Bill. The Department is amazingly sympathetic to the issue and will consider that, as well as other specific problems.

[Mr Francois]

I have only been a Member of Parliament for 19 years, but I have learned when not to look a gift horse in the mouth. If there is a lacuna in the current legislation, I would be pleased to talk to the Minister and his colleagues about how I might genuinely be able to help them address it.

[Chris Heaton-Harris]

Private Members’ Bills on a Friday—some people think they are not worth a hoot, but we can achieve some great things.

On the issue of fines and penalties, a range of criminal penalties are already in place, covering, for example, safety and compliance with permits. Local authorities can also issue overrun charges of up to £10,000 per day for works that are not completed in time. I know that Essex County Council is using those powers. In the last year, 513 charges were issued for overrunning works, imposing charges of just under £500,000. We are not convinced of the need to raise those limits any further, but the powers do exist.

I understand that the situation in my right hon. Friend’s constituency mirrors the experience of many others, but I also understand that Essex County Council is using the powers available to it and that it is working with developers and utility companies to co-ordinate works and ensure that they are completed as soon as possible or that work is done during off-peak times or school holidays, to minimise the impact on local road users.

To conclude, I thank my right hon. Friend for the way he has gone about this debate, for his positive contribution —as positive as it can be in the circumstances— and for quite rightly being demanding on behalf of his constituents. I hope and expect that we will all see improvements in the way that works are planned and managed as a result of Street Manager, greater use of permit schemes and the other reforms we are taking forward, and perhaps his private Member’s Bill will add to that.

Question put and agreed to.