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A Caerphilly councillor has called for utilities firms to improve the standard of their repair works after completing roadworks across the county borough.

More than 100 complaints were raised about the reinstatement of streets over the past two years, figures show.

“I appreciate that roads and pavements need to be dug up for a variety of reasons such as repairing water leaks or laying cables – but it is not acceptable when the reinstatement works are sub-standard,” said Cllr Steve Skivens, who represents Plaid Cymru in the Penyrheol ward. 

Figures obtained by Plaid via a Freedom of Information Act request show Caerphilly County Borough Council raised 106 complaints about works between 2023 and 2025.

The so-called Section 72 defects related to works by water, electricity, gas and telecommunications organisations.

Under Section 72 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, local authorities have powers to investigate whether streets have been properly reinstated following works.

In cases where repairs are substandard, councils can take action and recover the investigation costs from the firm which carried out the original works.

The council figures show that 62 of the 106 cases related to works undertaken by Welsh Water (Dŵr Cymru).

Cllr Skivens said: “I appreciate Dŵr Cymru is dealing with lots of issues including sewage discharges into rivers and the sea, but that is no excuse for not completing repair work satisfactorily.

“The information provided for me shows the number of requests for remedial work to be carried out by Dŵr Cymru represents 65% of all requests, and that is not good enough.

“I want to see much improved reinstatement work by all those that dig up our roads and pavements.”

A spokesperson for Welsh Water pointed to the scale of the company’s operations for context.

“Given the extensive length of our networks, Dŵr Cymru is the largest statutory undertaker operating in the public highway in Wales,” they said.

“The scale of our work is vital to ensuring that we can provide effective water and wastewater services in addition to related work such as installing meters accurately.”

The spokesperson said that “in Caerphilly County alone, we carried out 4,600 excavations during this period – of these, 99% of works met the required quality with defects reported on less than 1%”.

He added Welsh Water “will always do our best and apologise for any inconvenience, as we are committed to developing our teams to consistently deliver high-quality standards across every stage of our essential work”.