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Rental fees for most congested roadworks routes
Date: 14 February 2012 | Author: Hugh Hunston
Government measures aimed at cutting the UK's £4bn annual roadworks congestion bill include a lane rental scheme, which will allow local councils to charge daily rental fees for digging up our most heavily used routes.
Transport minister Norman Baker sees the scheme as an incentive to complete work more rapidly and at times of lower traffic flow, including at night.
To gather evidence on how effectively lane rental functions, the Department for Transport is planning to set up schemes with three "pioneer authorities" covering one metropolitan area and "two others".
Baker said that while permit schemes already existed the lane rental initiative would act as a "further incentive to utility companies and local authorities to carry out their works" with the minimum disruption and as quickly as possible.
Revenue raised from the lane rental charges will have to be invested in measures that could further reduce future disruption.
Lane rental programmes were operated in Camden and Middlesbrough between 2002 and 2004 but no further schemes were implemented, while the DfT claimed that existing regulations are obsolete and inoperable.
