Agenda item

This report is in response to a request from Councillor Griffiths and provides information in response to a series of questions. 

Decision:

Councillor Griffiths introduced the item as he had asked that a report on this issue was included on the agenda and advised that he wanted to consider this as a matter of ‘value for money’ for the council and taxpayers. He explained that the issue was about pavements being re-surfaced by the council and then, a very short time period later, being dug up by a utility company (in the specific case he had raised, this was for water meter installation by Southern Water) and the replacement surface material was being poorly, or temporarily, repaired and left in an unacceptable state. He asked whether an agreement or policy could be set in place so that the situation did not happen again in the future.

Officers responded that Southern Water’s meter replacement programme would run until 2015 and the company must notify the council of their intent, except in emergency cases. Officers accepted that they should learn from the situation that had occurred and were currently improving internal communications between various teams within the council, together with better communication with Southern Water.

The committee was also advised that officers were looking into the possibility of implementing a permit scheme for utility works in Medway. Following initial research it had emerged that a number of other Local Authorities were also looking into this, or had recently implemented a similar scheme. The committee was offered the opportunity of considering a report setting out the options for a permit scheme for utility works in the future.

Members discussed poor quality patching and replacement of pavement and highway works around Medway and asked what powers the council had to enforce the company involved to replace these to a higher quality finish. Officers responded that the officer responsible checked 10% of finished works by a ‘coring’ method to test the quality. If the finished product passed the test, the council paid to replace the ‘cored’ section. However, if the product failed the test, the utility company was fined and had to reinstate the site to the correct quality. If the ‘cored’ samples reached a high level of failure, the officer would check a higher percentage of the finished works.

The council would not be able to continue ‘coring’ work with the current resources and would need to look at this becoming a self-financing function. Officers also indicated that they would welcome any intelligence from Councillors about poorly patched or replaced sites in Medway.

The committee also discussed the problems of finding suitable replacement block paving or slabs in certain areas of Medway, particularly with regard to colour matching of products. Officers responded that most replacement work involved tarmac but where it involved specific materials, the council might have a small supply of replacement material or that it was now installed using ‘off the shelf’ products that were easily obtainable by contractors.

Councillor Griffiths summarised that the committee requested officer agreement to the principle that, unless for issues of health and safety or a real emergency, in this instance the council does not re-surface a pavement until water meters had been installed first. The Assistant Director, Front Line Services responded that he would re-enforce this point with the Highways team and would be clear that a pavement would only be re-surfaced where there was a clear need to do so.

Decision:

The committee agreed to:

(a)   note Members’ concerns of the poor quality of some of the pavement and highway re-instatements and officers’ responses to this issue;

(b)   request officers to make the necessary amendments to the pavement
re-surfacing programme to ensure that Southern Water water meters are installed first, except where issues of health and safety or a real emergency made it necessary;

(c)   add a future report to the work programme on a Street Works Permit Scheme including options for financing the scheme.