Councillors told of 'shocking levels' of abuse aimed at Hertfordshire's road workers

Verbal abuse, items being thrown out of cars and cones being moved were among the instances reported to a meeting of the council’s overview and scrutiny committee on Tuesday (17 December).

And in at least one case it was reported that a road worker was so badly hurt he was hospitalised.

“We’ve had some of our teams hospitalised in the past when residents have been unhappy with the noise,” said the council’s director of highways and strategic operations Anthony Boucher.

“We’ve had instances of people throwing the barriers out of the way and driving through live roadworks – and our teams having to get out of the way.

“And verbal abuse, people throwing things out of the cars is quite common.

“I don’t know a solution to that – but as a sector we’re doing the best we can.”

At the meeting committee chair Cllr David Andrews said he was “horrified” by the way colleagues working on the roads were receiving abuse.

And he referred to an instance “a couple of years ago” where there was a serious assault that let to an arrest – that was “just unacceptable”.

Echoing an officer’s report, he suggested a lot of it “comes from frustration”.

And he did suggest that more signage could take the ‘a lot of heat’ out of the situation.

Much of the maintenance of Hertfordshire’s roads is carried out on the council’s behalf by contractors Ringway.

And at the same meeting, levels of abuse were also highlighted Mitesh Solanki, who is managing director of Ringway Infrastructure Services.

“The level of abuse that they are getting out there is increasing day by day,” said Mr Solanki, who is also vice president of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation.

“People are becoming more and more impatient.

“And it’s hard for us to say, look they are just trying to do their job.

“It’s interesting listening today about how perhaps we can do slightly better in terms of communication to try and manage those emotions of those motorists.”

At the meeting – focused on the ‘pressures on highways and customer concerns’ – it was reported that the highways service delivers a wide range of services in Hertfordshire, but does not have the resources to do everything that customers would like.

And it was suggested that the “high volume of high quality work” was overshadowed by the defects that were not addressed.

Outlining the pressures facing highways, head of highways and strategic operations Anthony Boucher pointed to funding, customers and climate change.

He said that the funding – both capital and revenue – was “finite” and determined the amount and type of works that could be done.

He said climate change, leading to more frequent and severe weather events, could also cause significant damage to the highways – driving up the costs of highway maintenance.

And he highlighted the challenge of managing customer expectations – because of the disparity between available funding and maintenance needs.

He said that 60,000 contacts were made with the service each year – but that “very few” formal complaints were made.

And of those formal complaints made, he said “hardly any” were upheld.