7:23pm Sunday 14th March 2010
By Tom Moseley
UTILITIES companies leave Lancashire’s highways in a “sub-standard” condition thousands of times a year, it has been revealed.
Council inspectors looked at the way thousands of roads and pavements were replaced after work on gas mains and water pipes - and found 20 per cent were not up to scratch.
This leads to lengthy delays for motorists as the companies are ordered back on site to repair the surface.
With 32,500 projects carried out last year, around 6,500 were left needing more work.
Problems include potholes appearing and the re-laid road being out of line with the old surface.
Coun Keith Young, County Hall’s Tory highways chief, urged the government to press companies to raise their game.
He said: “Often these companies use contractors and sometimes the degree of conscientiousness is, to say the least, variable.
“If we pick up that there’s a defect we obviously have the right to insist they do whatever it takes to bring the roads up to scratch.
“But clearly we can’t do that with every piece of work they carry out. All we can do is exercise our right to have our roads done to a satisfactory standard.”
A report presented to councillors said: “Reinstatement quality continues to be a cause for concern, not just in Lancashire but across the whole of the UK. From a visual inspection perspective, 20 per cent of reinstatements fall below the required standard.”
Utilities companies have an obligation to put roads and pavements back to the condition they were in before any work - and have to cover the cost of extra work. The council can also charge the companies if the original project takes longer than anticipated.
Neither United Utilities or the trade association, the National Joint Utilities Group responded to requests for a comment.
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