Barnet council has drawn up a plan to stop the road works that are encumbering the borough.
The council’s charter of public services and highways aims to ensure effective management and coordination of work carried out by utility companies and other organizations on the road network.
According to a council report, an average of 35,000 sets of road works are authorized in the borough each year – 1.75 percent of all annual road works carried out across the UK.
But when work is not coordinated effectively and efficiently, the motorway network can quickly become overloaded and congested, the report adds.
The charter – a preliminary version of which was approved by the city council’s environment committee on Wednesday – aims to avoid this by forming a “voluntary alliance and professional agreement between the council and contractors operating on the motorway network”.
Chairman Cllr Dean Cohen (Tory, Golders Green) said he asked officers to bring the charter to the committee because he felt the board had no oversight over what utility companies were doing on the road network.
Robert Marchand, director of operations at Re Highways, told the committee: “The purpose of the charter is to bring together leading funeral directors to… sign up for a concerted approach to address the issues raised in terms of congestion, pollution, collaboration, so that we can minimize disruption and minimize the amount of work that is actually on the network.
Among the objectives set out in the charter are getting the work done the first time to avoid multiple visits, giving advance warning of temporary traffic lights and respecting the duration of authorized work.
There are also objectives around effective communication, respecting inspection codes and minimizing the impact of the work on the environment of the borough.
A recommendation to approve the draft charter for informal consultation was unanimously approved by the committee.
Labor advisers voted against a second recommendation to allow the final version of the charter to be approved by environmental chief Geoff Mee and Cllr Cohen, arguing that it should be approved by the committee in a public forum .
Responding to concerns, Cllr Cohen said the committee had been asked to review the draft charter. Councilor Peter Zinkin (Conservative, Childs Hill) added that if there was a significant change to the charter, he expected the committee to be notified.
Conservative committee members voted in favor of the second recommendation.
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Source: www.times-series.co.uk
This notice was published: 2021-06-07 14:37:14
