§ Mr. Paul MarsdenTo ask the Secretary of State for Transport how many trunk road excavations there have been in each Shropshire constituency in each year since 1997, and what the cost was in each case. [85633]
§ Mr. JamiesonI have asked the Chief Executive of the Highways Agency, Tim Matthews, to write to my hon. Friend.
216WLetter from Tim Matthews to Mr. Paul Marsden, dated 12 December 2002:
I have been asked by the Transport Minister, David Jamieson, to reply to your recent Parliamentary Question about the number and cost of trunk road excavations in each Shropshire constituency since 1997.From your question, we assume that you are seeking information on utility companies' works (water, gas, electricity, telecommunications, etc.) which involve trunk road excavations. I am afraid historical information of this type is not held centrally in a form that would be readily availableֵ It would be time consuming and expensive to collect, involving detailed searching through manual records from a number of different sources. That said, since September we have had a new streetworks system in place that will allow us to collect the number of streetworks excavations per utility within a specific area.I am sorry that I cannot send a more helpful reply. If you consider that the information that we have for the last two months for the trunk roads in Shropshire would be useful, it can be provided. The contact within the Agency is Andrew Slater, he can be contacted at our offices at Broadway, Broad Street, Birmingham B15 1BL, or by telephone on 0121 678 8504.