Who gives permission to dig up our streets, and who is allowed to do so?
Cheshire East Council’s role is to use its best endeavours to co-ordinate, and to keep a register of, works which are carried out in the streets for which it is responsible. This is done in the interests of safety, to minimise inconvenience to the public and to protect the structure of the street. The utility companies (e.g. Transco, BT, Manweb) have a right to excavate the street in order to place and repair their apparatus. They can do this without formal approval but have a duty to co-operate with, and to notify, Cheshire East Council regarding such works. A street can only be excavated by any other person if the work is carried out by an accredited contractor under a licence granted by Cheshire East Council. Everyone who excavates in a street has a duty to reinstate it to an acceptable standard when they have finished. Cheshire East Council carries out inspections on a sample of such reinstatements to investigate whether this is being done.
