HOLES AND HOW TO FILL THEM
Reader David Young has queried City of Edinburgh Council about the quality of repairs following cable laying across the city.
He cited the poor-looking quality of the road surface after works by private contractors as part of the Edinburgh Core/City Fibre scheme – on Howe St, Great King St and Kerr St, although other examples abound.
He questioned the quality and frequency of oversight, and asked who is responsible for such supervision.
The Performance Manager in charge replied that CEC inspects all such ‘openings’ (up to 11,000 per year, visited 34,000 times last year), and is aware of shortcomings when they occur.
Robust specifications
‘Robust specifications and codes of practice’ are in place, says the official, and where standards slip, follow-up inspections are carried out every 17 days until the problem is appropriately fixed. It charges for these visits (£36 each time), but has no authority to fine the companies involved. He continues:
We gather information regarding which reinstatements to inspect from the Scottish Road Works Register. There are two kinds of inspection, as detailed in the Code of Practice for Inspections, a Category B and a Category C inspection. A Cat B is carried out within 6 months following an interim or permanent reinstatement. A Category C inspection is carried out within 3 months preceding the end of the guarantee period. The guarantee period lasts for 2 years and only commences once a reinstatement has passed inspection by ourselves. A failed reinstatement has not been carried out to the correct specification and therefore does not start any guarantee.
Not a bodge but a fudge
CEC makes a distinction, though, between temporary repairs (as on Howe Street, pictured above), made to ease traffic flow in the short term until specialist contractors can undertake the work, and ‘failed’ reinstatements where work is not up to scratch.
Performance in terms of correct specification and completion time is discussed in detail with each Utility every two months. Continued failure to reach a 90 per cent minimum pass rate is reported to the Scottish Road Works Commissioner.
CEC is currently reporting five Utilities for their continued failure to reach targets.
If we don't lose the will to live first, we may return to this subject later. In the meantime, hole enthusiasts click here. For the avoidance of all doubt, our correspondent Mr Young does not wear a bowler hat.
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@theSpurtle As per Castle Street and Castle Hill, utilities have 1 year to permanently re-instate. Most of City Fibres stuff has been decent
@theSpurtle City Fibre are the only street works company to sign up to the CEC roadworks charter. Difficult to spot their works on F/Bridge