FLAWS IN THE NOTIFICATION SYSTEM

Inspectors charged with ensuring that road reinstatements are of a good quality have found a glaring hole in the notification system that utilities work to.

Brian Foxton, one of Greenwich Borough's three maintenance inspectors, said: 'The notification system is falling down.

'Of 4,000 Stage 1 (excavation work) and Stage 2 (backfill and reinstatement) notifications that I've responded to, I only found four!

'Even if you go the same day, either you never see the job because the contractor either hasn't started or the job is finished and they've all gone elsewhere.'

Because Foxton's difficulties are being encountered throughout the whole country, Keith Madelin, chairman of HAUC, is considering making changes.

'Highways Authorities have to look at 6% of road openings at each of five stages, in other words 30% of all activity,' he explained.

'It might be that we combine Stage 1 and 2 and look at 12% of this total. Or we might give Highways Authorities even more flexibility and allow them to inspect 30% of all work in any way that works.'

The current system puts a lot of pressure on contractors to predict where they will be working with total accuracy, but the reality is that having issued a list of the 20-30 jobs for the day, they subsequently find a multitude of reasons for making modifications, with the result that the working order changes.