North Tyneside highway workers "delighted" to be back in local authority, says Mayor following Capita rollback
North Tyneside Council chiefs have celebrated the return of highways workers to the local authority, following the rollback of outsourcing firm Capita's responsibilities.
Mayor Dame Norma Redfearn, at a local authority cabinet meeting on Monday, told colleagues that highway workers she had spoken to were "delighted" to return to the council. Previously, much of the council's highway maintenance work, and other jobs, was conducted by Capita.
However, council bosses signed off on rolling back Capita's role within the authority in June last year, with planning and property responsibilities returned to the council in October and highways workers to return in January this year.
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In all, around 200 workers will have returned to the local authority, with Capita retained for major, grant funded work, until 2027. The contract with the outsourcing giant was agreed by former Conservative Mayor of North Tyneside Linda Arkley in 2013.
Cabinet member for the environment, coun Hannah Johnson said: "It has been a positive first few weeks having the highways team back working for North Tyneside Council and we have seen some really exciting things. We have got plans for re-patching works, for redrawing road lines across the borough and plans for increased safety around schools."
Councillors had previously questioned work undertaken by Capita, with some claiming in meetings that some repair jobs had required multiple call outs. In addition, other representatives also questioned the standards of some road repairs conducted by Capita.
The firm responded stating that repeat repairs were often as a result of factors outside of their control, including vehicles damaging recent fixes. The company also stated that according to its own statistics, it carried out inspections to flagged road issues from councillors or residents within three working days, 98% of the time.
Road works in North Tyneside were also subject to a ministerial visit last Thursday, with Lillian Greenwood MP's tour of the North East. The future roads minister visited the region to discuss how £22m of government funding would be used to repair road surfaces throughout the region.