Norfolk County Council has rejected a proposal that would have named and shamed utility companies for poorly managed roadworks on Norfolk's roads.

The motion, put forward by Labour councillor Ben Weston, asked Cabinet to publish an annual "Utility Street Works Performance Report" listing each major utility or statutory undertaker operating in the county. It would have tracked how many times works overran, how many permit breaches occurred, how quickly defects were fixed, and how many fixed penalty notices were issued.

Councillors voted it down 41 to 35, with no abstentions.

The motion argued that residents should be able to see clearly how individual companies perform when digging up Norfolk's roads. It also called on Cabinet to consider stronger use of existing statutory powers against firms with a persistent record of poor performance.

Norfolk County Council already runs a permit scheme for street works and has powers to take enforcement action, but the motion sought to make that information publicly available in a single, comparable report for each company.

Supporters argued the measure would improve transparency without requiring new legal powers. Opponents were not recorded as giving specific reasons for voting against during the abbreviated end-of-meeting procedure.