A Leeds councillor hopes a new fee for construction companies will help end “free reign to just dig up roads pretty much as much as they wanted”.
Leeds City Council have started charging companies up to £2,500 a day for roadworks taking place on the busiest roads and at the busiest times.
Ed Carlisle, Green party councillor, said: “Yeah I think this is a good scheme… it just seems like a fairly simple way to reign in this very deregulated sector”.
The council have released a list of streets that are considered the busiest roads, this includes Aire Street and Albion Street in the city centre with the times being Weekdays, Saturday, Sunday 6am to 10pm.
The aim of the scheme is to push companies to plan work more effectively and reduce disruption and congestion caused by roadworks
But one shop owner in Leeds says he would prefer “compensation for small businesses”.
Frank Jay, owner of the Chilli shop, said: “I think the council needs to sort of engage with small local businesses better, because you know the first time anyone came in with a letter was when the building works had already reached my door to let me know they were happening”.
The scheme has some exceptions such as charges possibly not applying where there is no impact on carriageway flows.
Councillor Carlisle added: “Traffic jams and congestion is just bad for the city economy and bad for the city productivity so I think anything that just gets the city moving better and more efficiently is better and I just think it’s sensible it’s reasonable.”
Companies could continue to do their construction at any time and pay the fee rather than follow the list of times that would stop them from paying anything.
Councillor Carlisle said: “I mean this is capitalism right and inevitably they will I think seek to minimize this cost, but ultimately, if they do just take the fee on the chin that will generate useful income for for the council too and improve our highway infrastructure anyway.”
The scheme is also aimed at improving journey reliability for residents, businesses, and visitors.
Mr Jay added: “Well, the scheme will never help a business. It’s just penalising construction companies from overrunning. So we need a scheme to support, small, independent businesses when they’re affected”.
Leeds City Council have made the scheme fair by following the same principles as all other companies.