County Council responds to criticism over roadworks

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I’ve been hearing a growing number of complaints about the timing and quality of work carried out on our local roads. It would seem that County Hall has heard them too. They have issued the following press release setting out how many permits for work on our roads they have issued, how many they have refused and how many fines they have issued:

Norfolk County Council issued more than 44,000 street and roadwork permits last year (2024/25) with utility companies and developers accounting for 75% of all works.

The Council’s role is to coordinate and manage street works across the county, however there are 74 different utility companies who have the legal right to undertake work within the public highway and the county councils’ powers remain limited under national legislation.

7,000 of the permits issued last year were for unplanned emergency works, which often create the most disruption and 5,400 were rejected as the proposals were not acceptable.

Councillor Graham Plant, cabinet member for highways, infrastructure and transport said; “We are doing everything within our power to manage the impact of roadworks on Norfolk’s communities, but the reality is that we don’t have the authority to stop or delay many of these works. Utility companies have a legal right to dig up our roads, and in emergency cases, they can start work before even notifying us. While this lack of control makes it incredibly difficult to protect residents from disruption, we do hold third parties to account and will issue fines and reject permits when we need to.”

Norfolk County Council does have the power to issues Fixed Penalty Fines (FPNs) to utility companies for breaches such as working without a permit or failing to comply with permit conditions. In 2024/25, 2,809 FPNs were issued, generating nearly £340,000 in fines. An additional £345,000 was collected from 306 cases where utility works overran their scheduled completion dates, resulting in 1,317 days of disruption across Norfolk’s roads.

The Council is committed to holding companies accountable and in the last 12 months have successfully prosecuted two utility companies which resulted in court-imposed fines totalling almost £100,000 with full costs awarded to the Council.