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Changes to the Traffic Management Act mean County Council transport staff can use the powers to manage where and when works take place, meaning gas, electricity and water companies will need to apply for a permit before they can start work.

The Council will also be able to charge them if they breach any conditions that form part of the permit or if they take longer than agreed to complete the works, and utilities will have to give three months notice before they intend to begin road works.

Gas, electricity and water companies dug more than two million trenches last year, equivalent to one for every 200 yards of local authority road.

Locally, my colleagues and I on the Council are calling for these new powers to be used to hold rogue utility companies to account for unnecessarily prolonged or delayed road works.

Local residents suffer a great deal of inconvenience when roads and pavements are dug up and utility companies have had a free rein for too long now to dig holes when and where they like. This not only makes traffic congestion problems much worse, it also leaves local taxpayers and Councils to pick up the bill.