ASK Worcestershire motorists for their biggest frustrations behind the wheel and I imagine many would say dreaded roadworks.

And, as the streetworks lead for Severn Trent, I understand why sitting in traffic and waiting for a red light to turn green might be annoying in the increasingly fast-paced world we live.

The truth is our roads are now more congested than at any other time with a record 33.2 million cars registered in the UK, according to latest statistics.

That’s why we have a dedicated team working round the clock to reduce disruption to our communities — and they are already making a positive difference.

The nature of our business means there are times when roadworks are inevitable or unexpected.

Inevitable because we are committed to improving our huge network of some 97,000 kilometres of pipes.

And unexpected because we do have occasional bursts requiring emergency repairs, as seen in Foregate Street, Worcester, in May.

We understand how annoying resultant road closures and temporary traffic lights are to motorists caught in traffic — we don’t like sitting in queues either.

But these measures are vital to protect our workers and the public — our number one priority.

We do though try to ensure the impact of any works is as minimal as possible with a recent example being a major investment project to improve water supply around Chaddesley Corbett.

Roadworks began on the busy A448 Kidderminster Road on February 19 with a potential completion date of May 13.

The scheme involved the closure of a section of the busy carriageway with a lengthy traffic diversion in place.

We knew these works would create concerns locally so assigned a dedicated community engagement officer who held a drop-in meeting with villagers.

They met our roadworks team and learned more about the scheme benefits and the reason for the diversion routes and timescales.

We also listened to their concerns and addressed them where we could.

We asked our contractors Watertight Management Ltd to work seven days a week and up to 12 hours a day where possible and the scheme was completed in just five weeks — seven weeks early.

Through this period we kept residents up to date on social media and through press releases.

By talking and most importantly listening to the public, we did what we promised — minimised the impact of these roadworks.

We know doing better means improving communication, including continuing to work extremely closely with local authorities and other utilities on every project.

We will have tailor-made plans in place for every major roadworks scheme in the future, including our community engagement officers speaking directly with locals, councillors, businesses and other affected parties.

Working at weekends or overnight to reduce timescales may also be considered at times if appropriate.

We are also investing in the latest technology to provide real-time roadworks updates and improved signage, including billboards, newspaper adverts and hyper-local social media.

In some cases, we have even set up specific online groups to keep people fully informed of the latest developments and to allow them to feed back their own thoughts.

Overall, we aim to ensure all those immediately impacted by the work will have all the information they need with regards to parking, access, refuse collection, buses, etc, as well as a dedicated contact for any issues.

And when work is complete we will follow up with residents and others for a comprehensive debrief to pick up on any lessons learned so they can be built into our future plans.

We hope that by introducing all these new measures we are on the right road to reducing disruption for our communities.