Street Works (Amendment) (Northern Ireland) Order 2007

Well, some of them are legitimate. If there are any emergencies, as one noble Lord asked, there is a provision for works to be classified as ““immediate activities””. Utilities would not be required to give permits for emergency work, but, within two hours of starting work, they would need to tell the roads authority that they were on the job. That is not unreasonable. We have had a lot of figures bandied about. The order will not come fully into force for quite a while because of the work that has to be done following the original legislation, but less congestion will be a benefit. You cannot put a cost on congestion, although economists attempt to do so when we are looking at new roads and so on. The cost of congestion is an enormous figure over a year, but it is difficult to say how it affects the individual wallet. However, all utilities, private or public, are regulated, and it would be up to the regulator to ensure that the costs passed on to the customer were consistent and that the customer was not simply ripped off. I shall answer noble Lords’ specific questions in no particular order. Where a department intended to resurface a road, there would be a plan for that. There would be a programme of works, depending on the budget that was allocated. These things are not done willy-nilly; they have to be planned months, and in some cases years, in advance. The utilities might be asked to contribute towards the cost where they have been active in the excavations. The noble Lord, Lord Maginnis, referred to private developers—presumably of housing or office blocks—who may be building or be required to build roads and access as part of the planning gain or planning permission. They will be required to put in and pay for the road infrastructure as part of the development, but they are not going around digging up the road for repairs. Essentially, we are talking about the utilities—the undertakers with responsibility for water, gas, electricity, telephone lines or perhaps TV cables. We are referring to all those things that are under the road or cross the road and may need repairing or upgrading from time to time.