Gateshead permit scheme for road works and street works

Following the request from The Department of Transport (DFT) for all local authorities to implement the permit scheme, we commenced the scheme on the 23 March 2020. 

This is the second annual evaluation report showing the key performance indicators and performance of the scheme in managing, road works and street works throughout the Borough of Gateshead.

The first two years have been challenging, with the new scheme having to be implemented at the start of the global pandemic, which affected all activities undertaken by the Highway Authority and Statutory Undertakers. 

The second year has saw an increase in all activities from both the Highway Authority and the Statutory Undertakers as restrictions were relaxed and deferred projects were actioned.

The third year has seen a huge increase in all activities from all sectors especially the telecoms industry as they roll out project gigabit to connect homes with fibre.

The report evaluates the progress of the permit scheme in meeting both the stated objectives and parity of treatment of all works for highway purposes and utility street works as set out in Gateshead's Permit Scheme. In both respects, the scheme is already demonstrating successful outcomes.

The data was collated from Mayrise, Gateshead Council's highway asset management system.

Permit schemes were introduced by Traffic Management Act 2004 part3 (opens new window) and are regulated in England by the The Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) Regulations 2007 (opens new window). The 2007 Regulations were amended by the The Traffic Management Permit Scheme (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2015 (opens new window) to reflect changes made by the Deregulation Act 2015 and other changes to the operation of permit schemes.

Authorities must evaluate their scheme every 12 months of operation for the first three years of operation and then every three years thereafter. This is the third year review of Gateshead's permit scheme for roadworks and streetworks.

The primary objectives of permit schemes are to:

• Manage and coordinate street works more effectively
• Help to minimise delays/disruption to road users. 
• Improved safety at all works
• Improved communication about the purpose and duration of activities taking place on the Boroughs road network

The objectives stated here are by no means intended to be exhaustive. 

The permit scheme will help to improve the strategic and operational management of the highway network through the better planning, scheduling, and management of road work activities to minimise avoidable traffic disruption to all road users. Achieving this aim will contribute to the efforts of the borough to meet its Network Management Duty under the Traffic Management Act.

The objectives of the Gateshead Council Permit Scheme are stated in section 1.7 of the scheme.

Obtain greater control and consistency over all activities on the highway 

We use permit refusals to ensure that information is accurate, and Fixed Penalty Notices to drive the quality of information. We encourage pre works engagement to discuss the appropriate traffic management and site requirements.

This greater level of planning helps to ensure permits contain all the necessary information allowing for first time granting of the permit. Inspections are carried out and sites are visited to ensure compliance with the code of practice. Compliance checks on site-specific permit conditions are also carried out to ensure that the operatives are adhering to the conditions on which the permit was granted.

Manage and minimise delays and other impacts on all road users

Careful use of conditions is employed to ensure works are undertaken at suitable times. We encourage weekend working where appropriate to reduce the number of working days disruption. Permit conditions are applied to manage activities, for instance on strategic routes, working times are used to ensure that these activities commence outside of traffic sensitive times, thereby reducing delays and minimising disruption. 

Promote best practice and enhance coordination, collaboration, and cross boundary cooperation across the North East region, particularly in the area covered by the North East Joint Transport Committee 

There are significant savings in occupation of the highway from activities through the use of conditions to manage these activities, coordinating works to avoid clashes, seeking collaborative opportunities and challenging durations. Planned, immediate and ongoing works can be viewed in real time by the public on the One Network (opens new window) platform. The permit team ensure that permit applications contain descriptions that are easy to understand, including the duration and description of works activities. 

The following set of key performance indicators are intended to assist in demonstrating parity between work promoters.

This data was collected using Gateshead's street work register system, Mayrise.

• KPI 1 - The number of permit applications and variations received, the number granted, and the number refused.
• KPI 3 - The number of requests received to extend an ongoing activity
• KPI 7 -  Permit Inspections to check compliance with permit conditions
• OM 6 - Collaborative phases and the numbers of calendar and working days
• AM 5 - Fixed Penalty Notices Permit Breaches

KPI 1 - The total figures received of permit types, variations, granted and refused applications.

These will be shown as Highway Authority (HA) and Statutory Undertaker (SU)

Breakdown of the various types of permit received

The data shows that roughly 22% of all permit applications received are from the Highway Authority while the remaining 78% are from Statutory Undertakers.

This differs from 30% HA and 70% SU in 2021/22, which shows that the amount of permits generated from the Statutory Undertakers has increased.

We expect this to steady at around the 25%/75% split moving forward.

Number of permits received per Statutory Undertaker (SU)

The amount in brackets are 2021 to 2022 figures.

Most permits were granted first time. The statutory undertakers are now used to submitting permits and as such, the quality of the permits submitted has enabled the permit team to grant the application first time. 

We have seen a nearly 1000% increase in permit submissions from the telecoms companies in the year 2022/23 which resulted in an increase in workloads and inspections.

The permit refusals remained constant, and these included clashes of works where collaborative working is not possible, to time constraints or activities are required to only take place at specified times to minimise the disruption to the highway. Other reasons for refusals include insufficient information provided, incorrect location shown on the permit, or inappropriate traffic management, to name but a few.

KPI 3 - The number of requests received to extend an ongoing activity

Identifying and controlling instances of approved extensions support the objectives of the Gateshead Permit Scheme to reduce unnecessary occupation

The reasons for requesting an extension to ongoing works varied from unforeseen engineering difficulties discovered when works commenced, additional time to find leaks on emergency permits to adverse weather conditions, but also to poor planning by the statutory undertaker.

The number of requests has increased due to the increase in permit submissions and the poor planning by some of the newer statutory undertakers.

KPI 7 - Permit condition inspections

For the first 2 years of the permit scheme (April 20 to March 22) the streetworks permit team only had 1 streetworks inspector. In May 2022 the Streetworks team employed an additional streetworks inspector allowing more permit condition inspections to be undertaken.

You can see from the table below that the number of permit conditions inspections increased from 457 in 2021 to 2022 to 1079 in 2022 to 2023 and the average failure rate of permit inspections is 22.52% compared to 7.88% in 2021 to 2022, this can be attributed to the increase in inspections and scrutiny that the 2 inspectors are undertaking. The failure rate differs between Statutory Undertakers.

The breaches of permit conditions can include not displaying the correct permit number, not complying with the agreed working hours as stipulated on the permit or failure to adhere to the traffic management arrangements in place, amongst others.  

In the table 2021 to 2022 figures are shown in ()

In addition to the Department for Transports KPIs, the Gateshead Scheme sets out several Operational Measures that provide further insight into the way scheme is being operated and the success of the scheme.

The number of permit applications where collaborative working took place reducing the duration of the activities.

Operational Measure OM6 details the total of collaborative phases and the numbers of calendar and working days saved for the Highway Authority and Statutory Undertaker works for April 2022 to March 2023.

The table above shows how disruption on the network was reduced as a result of collaborative works taking place. Gateshead Council actively promotes collaborative works where possible. In the quarterly streetworks coordination meetings works promoters and works programme information on planned future activities are shared this helps identify potential collaborative working.

The figures for the number of days saved by collaborative working in 2022 to 2023 are much lower than those of 2021 to 2022, and whilst this may be alarming it can be attributed to the fact that collaborative working was simply not possible given the nature of the works that were being undertaken.

Authority Measure AM5 - Fixed Penalty Notice - Permit Breaches

Year 3 data has been gathered from Mayrise which shows the number of Fixed Penalty Notices issued for permit breaches including withdrawn Fixed Penalty Notices.

The table below shows that the permit authority served Fixed Penalty Notice and were withdrawn 

The reasons for the Fixed Penalty Notices are listed here

• 70(6) Failure to comply with requirements to give notice of completion of reinstatement
• 74(7B) Failure to give a notice required by regulations under s74 (charge for occupation of the highway where works unreasonably delayed)
• 19(1) Working without a permit
• 20(1) Breach of permit conditions

Gateshead streetworks permit team only had 1 streetworks inspector for 2021 to 2022 so the amount of FPNs relating to 19(1) and 20(1) working without a permit and working in breach of permit conditions is severely limited, and this is demonstrated in the data below. In May 2022 the Streetworks team employed an additional streetworks inspector allowing more permit inspections to be undertaken and the figures show has been a dramatic increase in the number of FPNs issued for breach of conditions and that is solely down capturing the breaches whilst on site.

The 2021 to 2022 figures are in ()
 

Financial Information

It is generally accepted that permit schemes can take up to three years become financially stable. A full review of the cost benefit analysis will be undertaken after the third anniversary of the scheme. Gateshead Council anticipates additional permit scheme-related costs within this three-year period.

The permit authority will review its level of fees in line with regulations to ensure that the overall fee income does not exceed the allowable costs, to ensure that the scheme remains as close to financial balance as possible over the medium term.

The scheme made an operating surplus of £23,701 in year three, this is an acceptable tolerance in a cost neutral scheme, but consideration will be given to amending the permit fees in future years.

Since its introduction the Gateshead permit scheme has been successful with benefits being delivered against the initial objectives, including consistency of approach in the delivery of the Network

Management duty. There has been clear alignment between the delivery of the permit scheme across the authority in between all statutory and non-statutory work promoters as well as the Highway Authority.

Overall, several of the scheme's aims tie directly into Gateshead Council's strategic approach, Thrive. However, the council recognises that the introduction of a permit scheme does not deliver instant success and relies upon achieving the objectives and continuous review.

There has been a significant increase in the works undertaken by the utility companies from year 2 but an analysis of these shows that the works by non telecoms related companies has remained broadly static while the telecommunications sector has almost tripled since year 2.

Whilst Gateshead has done well in its third year, the team will always be seeking to improve the operations; this will ensure the permit scheme operates in a cost effective and economic manner.

• Seek to improve permit officer knowledge of the network through increased involvement in site inspections and visits with the street works inspectors.
• Encourage all undertakers to increase advanced publicity to reduce public complaints and to liaise with ward members of their intentions to undertake work in their ward.
• Encourage utilities to collaborate and reduce their costs as well as disruption to the network.
• Seek to improve data analysis and recording in order to provide meaningful year on year comparisons.
• Encourage works promoters to submit correct permits at the first submission thus just avoiding variations being submitted.