Anglian Water under fire for highways hold ups in Lincolnshire County Council report

The authority’s Highways and Transport Scrutiny Committee on Monday will receive a report on the utilities company which accounts for around a third of all highways permits issued by the council.

The company has come under scrutiny in recent years following a series of fines and delays, as well as major sinkhole issues.

Some of the issues highlighted by the report before councillors includes:

• Inconsistency in dropping road closure signs when not needed/teams not on site
• Inconsistency in contacting LCC for agreement prior to implementing an immediate road closure
• Anglian Water setting up traffic management before it is confirmed a team is available to attend the site
• Failing to provide LCC with diversion information for emergency road closures and failing to apply for Temporary Traffic Regulation Order notices
• 250 outstanding defects of greater than six months
• Increase in fines and penalties for Anglian Water in 2021.

“The extension of works periods and the late removal of traffic management measures has a detrimental effect on the expeditious flow of traffic upon our highway network,” sasys the report.

“Continued collaboration and cooperation with Anglian Water will help to improve traffic flows and reduce congestion.

“Increased compliance will reduce the number of fines and penalties Anglian Water incur and adds a beneficial incentive to further collaboration with Lincolnshire County Council. ”

The report notes that since April, the council has recovered £220,000 of costs from Anglian Water.

Out of 1,892 Anglian Water road closures between April 1, 2022, to January 31, 2023, Anglian Water failed to apply for almost a quarter of the required traffic regulation orders (427 – 23 per cent).

In November, figures released by Lincolnshire County Council showed a 66.74 per cent increase in fines in 2021-22, charging £543,050 for a total of 1,875 permit breaching days.

Recent issues have included a series of closures in Spalding at the beginning of April when Anglian Water put around seven repairs in place while LCC was carrying out works in Winfrey Avenue causing gridlock in the town.

An Anglian Water Spokesperson said: “The health and safety of our customers and our teams when carrying out essential work on our networks is absolutely paramount and we do our best to minimise disruption to communities and road users wherever possible.

“We are currently working closely with Lincolnshire Highways on a range of initiatives targeted at improving our operational excellence.

“This includes making significant improvements to our systems, processes and the training of our operational teams.”