Plans to manage how roadworks are carried out across Staffordshire have been approved by senior county councillors.

The authority is aiming to work more closely with utility companies to plan out when and where work is carried out, in a bid to reduce disruption to motorists, Staffordshire County Council cabinet members were told at their latest meeting.

In recent years, roadworks coinciding in areas such as Stafford have led to gridlock at peak times as drivers attempt to get in and out of town.

In 2024, when three major routes into the county town led to a taxi firm writing to the Transport Minister, branding the council as "totally and utterly incompetent".

Last year, following the change in administration to the Reform UK ruling party, a three-month freeze was put on new non-essential roadworks already affected by disruption and the council's latest Traffic and Network Management Plan was approved by cabinet members this month.

Councillor Peter Mason, cabinet member for strategic highways, said: "We know that roadworks and temporary disruption can be frustrating, which is why this Traffic Network Management Plan sets out how we will manage activity on our roads more carefully and consistently.

By improving coordination, strengthening oversight and planning works more effectively, our aim is to reduce unnecessary disruption, keep Staffordshire moving and make sure our highways are managed in a way that puts residents first.

"The plan directly supports the new Staffordshire roadmap to a better network we published last October and that sets out a commitment to fix our roads, save our highways structures and address our backlog of highways defects.

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This plan recognises that tackling challenges must also go hand in hand with keeping the county moving while these works are delivered and not shutting the county down.

"Keeping Staffordshire moving is absolutely critical for residents, businesses and the local economy, especially at a time when the investment in work we intend to deliver is increasing.

"In September we recognised the existing approach was leading to major and unsustainable disruption for residents and businesses across some areas of our network and some of our towns and we took short-term action to address that.

"This plan embeds those actions and seeks to create a balance between the works and the disruption we create with those works, specifically in some of our towns, so the network remains functional and open for business.

"We have to facilitate access to that network for about 70,000 permit-holders a year to get road space to do those works and their repairs.

"Over 60% of those permits are utilities or third parties, they are not directly in the control of Staffordshire County Council Highways as to what works are executed.

"That includes immediate access, emergency repairs where we don't even get notification at all."

The authority has started conversations with utility companies, cabinet members were told.

Cllr Mason said: "We would like to see a 12-week look ahead, we would like to see them do their emergency repairs very quickly and get out the way because they are the ones that cause real disruption and always happen where we have already got other disruption occurring.

"It needs us to work co-operatively with them.

"We don't necessarily have the powers to force them to co-operate and we have launched a campaign to try and get some legislative changes considered that would give us a bit more teeth to force co-operation and co-ordination.

"That's been met with mixed reaction from local MPs, but that is something that would help us. In the meantime, we're trying to work with them, we're trying to challenge their permit durations down and we're seeking to create an environment where most of the works that take place on our network we have a 12-week sight of before they occur.

"It won't always be the case – there are things that we will have to allow quicker than that.

"But we are looking to work in collaboration so that we can co-ordinate our works and spend the money wisely, so we're not spending money on repairing roads that are due to be dug up for other reasons six months down the line."

Fellow cabinet members welcomed the proposals.

Council leader Martin Murray said: "I am very confident now that when we revisit this next year, we will have seen improvement.

"The people and businesses of Staffordshire will see a noticeable improvement in those highways we took over."

Deputy leader Hayley Coles said: "I think this shows the vast amount of highways, partners and utilities you are dealing with and it's a massive scale.

"It's about what's right for Staffordshire residents and I think this shows a really big shift change in doing that.

"We've all sat in congestion and felt really frustrated.

"I feel it would be great if the utilities worked with us."