To ask the Minister for Infrastructure to detail the number of improvement notices issued to statutory undertakers relevant to The Street Works (Northern Ireland) Order 1995, broken down by statutory undertaker, in each of the last five financial years.

My Department monitors statutory undertaker company performance by carrying out sample inspections of reinstatements and signing lighting and guarding of works as set out in the Northern Ireland Road Authority and Utilities Committee (NIRAUC) Code of Practice for Inspections.

Improvement notices can be issued for any defects identified during sample inspections and this imposes a requirement on the undertaker to submit an improvement plan.

Following discussions with my officials on a number of issues, an improvement plan was submitted to the Department by BT (Openreach) in 2020/2021 however this was not prompted by the issuing of an improvement notice.

I can also confirm that an improvement notice was issued to Virgin Media in 2019/2020 and that no improvement notices were issued in the three years prior to 2019/2020.