The last month has seen utilities make the news but not always for the right reasons. From transport secretary Chris Grayling's suggestion they should be run under pavements, to major fines for companies not cooperating with local authorities, the subject has caused controversy and prompted discussion. With this in mind, Highways spoke to Mark Wrightson, Openreach’s head of streetworks about how utilities and local authorities could work together better and perhaps find some common ground, compromise and even solutions.
Q. There have been some big fines for BT street works recently. Could you let us know a bit more about how these situations arise and how local authorities and others can help?
Back in March Transport for London (TfL) ordered us to pay a ‘record’ £90,000 fine for failing to properly sign and guard a work area in the Bishopsgate in the City of London, and using the wrong traffic management methods. On this occasion a team from one of our contractors had misread the permit conditions believing them to still be active. We’ve since introduced a raft of measures for contractors to follow, such as making our online planning systems fully integrated with smart phones and tablets for our people and increased supervision right across the capital.
However, incidents like these do need to be seen in the wider context. We carry out 3,500 projects like this one every month across London and over 99% are completed without incident. That’s a pretty good record but public safety is absolutely paramount to us and we’re always looking at ways we can improve.
Q. What are the challenges Openreach faces when carrying out street works?
Our network is truly nationwide and the big challenge is for us is having to manage the many regional variations to the rules and regulations governing streetworks.
Ironing out these inconsistencies and introducing standardised rules and regulations would help to speed up the time it takes to get work done and save on costs.
This is especially important as we begin to ramp up our Fibre First programme – rolling out ultrafast ‘full fibre’ technology across the UK – reaching 3 million homes and businesses by 2020. For example, there are more than 100 permit schemes in place across the UK and many vary significantly in terms of costs, conditions and policies.
This means that we have to spend a lot of extra time learning and understanding the different local interpretations of the rules. So if we need to suspend a bus stop in Leeds, the turnaround time from the council for approval is within 30 days whereas in Brighton the turnaround time is seven days; the timescales vary across the UK.
Permit schemes also need to be more flexible. For example, there’s no real process in place to bring works forward in real-time if we have a cabling team become available at short notice.
We’re calling on the Government to help speed up delivery with the introduction of a new permit, which would provide greater flexibility for working within defined parameters. Features could include widening the scope of the permit and permit conditions agreed up front for all works within that area.
Q. Do you have a best practice guide/strategy for working with local authorities or an example of where you feel things have gone very well that you would like to see copied?
The framework for co-ordination is a great platform for developing relationships with local authorities. We build up good relationships with inspectors, traffic management co-coordinators and some authorities are terrifically helpful in providing expertise and support for our more complex works.
We are really excited by our Fibre First programme and I feel we are developing strong partnerships and a framework that will improve how we plan, how we communicate and how we execute our works – with real focus on minimising disruption to the public.
Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds and Birmingham Councils are really helping with early starts and have agreed to meet us on a weekly basis to discuss the phases of our fibre build programme.
Q. What are you doing to help minimise disruption from street works and boost collaboration?
We always try to make the need to dig up roads the last resort and consider every other delivery method before doing so. This is a real culture shift over the last 18 months. We are piloting a raft of new delivery methods, including new cable extraction techniques - which re-use duct space so we don’t have to install new ducts to do the same job - and improved planning methods using a series of complex computer algorithms, which factor in things like demand forecast and land development.
We’re always keen to work more collaboratively and we’ve recently developed our EToN (Electronic Transfer of Notifications) system to flag internal permit sharing opportunities (ie. between different workforces representing Openreach) and we’ve also conducted a trial this year with Elgin – the national roadworks database - which at the click of a button, tells you where two or more utilities can use booked road space at the same time – so minimising disruption and repeated works in the same area.
