By Local Democracy Reporter Simon Finlay
The number of road closures in the county has rocketed in the past four years, new figures have revealed.
Permits issued to shut the highways temporarily have shot up in recent years, particularly those by utility companies.
The figures were contained in a report put before members of the Kent County Council (KCC) Environment and Transport Cabinet Committee on Thursday (September 19).
In 2020-21 there were 6,604 closures for utilities which leapt to 10,296 in 2023-24 while KCC works rose from 3,477 to 5,992 in the same period.
Much of the work is associated with house building in the county while KCC must carry out essential maintenance and repairs, such as pothole patching.
Replacing old pipes or installing broadband into more remote rural areas are also causing the closures.
Committee chairman, Cllr Sean Holden (pictured), set up an inspectorate earlier this year of three KCC officials to monitor works.
He said 1,300 fines have been issued this year to contractors not complying with the terms of the temporary closure permits with fines totalling £95,000.
Cllr Holden said the average fine paid was less than £80 per breach and asked for much higher penalties in the future. Fines are set nationally and not by KCC.
Breaches can include not displaying the permit number properly, overstaying on a site, failing to remove signs or put in proper diversions.
Cllr Holden said: “It is universally annoying for all the residents of Kent that we have gone from a few thousand closures annually to 16,000 closures a year. It is the county council’s job to make sure that these closures are not as problematic as they could be.
“I am reassured that we are bearing down on people misusing their permits or not doing the work properly.
“It’s no consolation that we can’t cut down the number of closures. It is often utility companies replacing gas mains, putting in electrical connections or fixing water leaks.
“We have to allow them to do that but the main thing is that we keep the pressure on to minimise the disruption to the residents of Kent.”
Papers submitted for the meeting state: “Temporary road closures continue to increase.
“This reflects the ever-increasing number of organisations now seeking to access the highway to undertake critical work (e.g. utility companies, telecommunications, and developers – all with increasing numbers of sub-contractors of differing capability and experience of highway working).
“The data below demonstrates this; road closures have increased year on year.
“We are also aware that the project Building Digital UK (BDUK) will bring a significant increase in rural closures.”
KCC cabinet member for highways, Cllr Neil Baker (pictured), warned committee members road works are likely to increase but agreed the council must lessen the impact on Kent’s residents.
Maidstone central member Cllr Tom Cannon asked KCC officers if it was possible to see the numbers of road closures going back 15 years to put in context the present problems.
Cllr Holden said he knew that in 2016 the number of permits issues was around 3,000.
He added that every mile of KCC’s network of 5,400 miles of roads is now being closed on average three times a year.
The committee passed a recommendation by Cllr Harry Rayner to Cllr Baker and KCC officers to “stringently” enforce fines for breaches and to explore how Transport for London enforces closures on red routes for possible adoption in Kent.
This is disgusting, if the utilities all worked together this would probably be less the a quarter of road closures and also if the utilities did the job probably in the first place they wouldn’t have to come back and do the same job again, just around the corner from me there have been a water leak which has been repaired three times this year and it’s still leaking,
Im not suprised because Kents roads are awful.I drive all over South East England and our roads are the worst.They are also the most littered.Think Kent should be renamed The Garden Dump of England.
Do include (and punish) SGN for their closure of the A251 just south of Faversham for the past 8 weeks. Whilst these works may have been essential having driven along the road Saturday evening I noticed very few repairs to holes in the road – and most of these were off to one side of the carriageway – certainly nothing worthy of a complete closure with all the disruption to regular users this caused. There could (should) have been traffic lights, or a one way system installed with the alternative direction using nearby country lanes on a one way basis.
I guess the good folk of Selling Road will be pleased to see traffic levels return to normal, the signposted diversion via the A28 & Canterbury was a joke, anyone volunteering to join the usual queues at multiple roadworks or into Canterbury via Wincheap on this road?
That inspector needs to come to Thanet. It will open his eyes with all the road closures here. Many of there roads closed don’t even need to be full closures. Many of those works have been finished yet the signs are still up. Many have no warning signs as they are left flat on the road or pavement because they have not been weighted down, including the orange plastic fencing. Some works do not have obligatory notices who and where to call in an emergency.
Fines need to be higher but inspections need to be made daily too. What are the KCC highways inspectors doing where drivers can see issues that have been left undone for weeks and yet they don’t see them?
I drive from Broadstairs to Whitstable on 16th September. I allowed over an hour because of the ridiculous congestion around school pick up time. My journey took over two hours. Haine Road was impossible. Lots of vehicles giving up and turning round. I eventually got to my destination via Cliftonville and Birchington. There were no road closures advertised. Just traffic!!