Lincolnshire: Utility firms fined £500k for highways work delays

A council has imposed fines of more than half a million pounds on utility companies for rogue signage and overrunning highways works.

Figures released by Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) showed a 66.74% increase in fines in 2021-22.

In total, the authority charged £543,050 for a total of 1,875 permit-breaching days.

A spokesperson for the council said it was working hard to minimise disruption for road users.

Part of the reason fines were going up was because its "policing" of the situation was improving, LCC said.

Anglian Water was fined £168,850 for 571 days of breaches, which LCC said made up nearly a third of all fines issued.

The company, which operates across eastern England, has faced the most fines for four of the past five years, except in 2019 when Western Power was fined £9,200 across 20 days of breaches.

Reasons for fines included where works had carried on, or signs were left out, after a work permit had expired, the Local Democracy Reporting Service said.

Last year Anglian Water undertook 16,348 works in the public highways and said it had made "every attempt to clear sites within permit dates".

A spokesperson for the company said: "Anglian Water is the largest work promoter in Lincolnshire, therefore apply for more permits than any other utility or highway authority."

They said the year had been "very challenging" for all water companies, with the driest summer seen in a long while, which had caused an "unprecedented volume of leaks and bursts".

"We've done the highest volume of works that we have ever done previously and are continuing to see a backlog of that even now," the spokesperson added.

Anglian Water said it was working closely with LCC to "improve working relationships and understand concerns".

"It's unfortunate that these types of thing happen and we do try to resolve issues as speedily as we can," a spokesperson for LCC said.

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