County gets government go-ahead for lane rental scheme

The council said the charge would be imposed on the busiest roads at peak times to discourage utilities from obstructing heavy traffic.

Roughly 9.0% of the highway network would be liable for the charges, based on factors such as traffic volume and bus frequency. Lane rental will also apply to the council’s own roadworks.

Similar schemes already operate in London, Kent, Surrey and West Sussex and Oxfordshire noted government evaluations had shown these to reduce the duration of works and their impact on roads.

Andrew Gant, cabinet member for transport management, said the sudden arrival of utilise to dig up roads inconvenienced users and created severe problems on the network.

Cllr Gant said: “The work is very often emergency-related and councils have no option to agree to it given that otherwise people’s homes and businesses would potentially be cut off from water, electricity or other essentials.

“However, it is in everyone’s interests for these utilities to minimise their impacts and a lane rental scheme is one such way. If they know they are going to be charged for the length of time they spend there, it is an incentive to complete the job as expeditiously as possible.”

The council said any surplus money raised by the scheme would be used to help improve the highway network.

Oxfordshire has operated a permit scheme for road and street works since 2020 and receives about 30,000 requests a year.

Permit scheme charges though only allow the council’s costs to be recovered and not specific charges to discourage works at busy times.

Mark Smulian