A struck main or cable can trigger a claim from more than one direction at once, and the two directions do not run on the same rules. Confusing them is how a contractor ends up defending the wrong argument, or a buyer ends up chasing the wrong party for the cost of the damage.

Two separate questions, not one

The first question is what an undertaker owes the street authority for damage to the street itself, which sits under statute. The second is what happens when the thing struck belongs to someone else entirely, a gas main, a fibre cable, a water main owned by a different undertaker, which sits under the ordinary law of negligence. A scope of works that only addresses the first has said nothing about the second.

The distinction matters at the point a claim actually lands, because the party bringing it, the standard they have to meet and the defences available all change depending on which route it travels. Knowing which one applies before the dig starts is the only point at which it is useful.

What section 82 covers

The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (NRSWA 1991), section 82, sets out liability for damage caused during street works to another undertaker's apparatus in the street. It applies where a utility undertaker, or a contractor working under that undertaker's street works right, damages a pipe, cable or other apparatus belonging to a different network operator while carrying out excavation. It does not cover damage to a buried service that falls outside that statutory relationship, and it does not cover a claim by a private landowner. Those sit in ordinary negligence.

Who the parties are

Two undertakers stand on either side of a section 82 claim: the one executing the street works, and the one whose apparatus has been struck. The street authority, the local highway authority responsible for the road itself, is not the claimant under this provision; its own interest in the works is dealt with elsewhere in the Act. Where a principal contractor carries out the physical excavation on an undertaker's behalf, the statutory liability sits with the undertaker holding the street works right. The contract between undertaker and contractor is what decides where the cost lands between them.

The measure of liability

Liability under section 82 does not turn on proving negligence. An undertaker who damages another undertaker's apparatus while executing street works is answerable for the loss that follows, without the apparatus owner first having to show the excavation was carried out carelessly. That is a different starting point from a claim against a contractor who strikes a service belonging to someone outside this statutory relationship, which has to be built on proving a duty, a breach and a loss in the ordinary way.

For a principal contractor pricing or specifying the work, the point to settle is where this liability sits before the dig starts. It belongs to the undertaker with the street works right, and it is the contract with that undertaker that fixes who pays if apparatus is struck on the day. Clause wording on technique, spoil ownership and reinstatement can also address this before work starts; see the scope-of-works wording for this asset type on Specifying It in a Scope of Works.

Striking a third party's cable or pipe outside a street works context is not governed by the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. It falls to ordinary negligence, and a claim under that route has to establish three separate things before any question of payment arises.

Duty of care

A contractor excavating near a buried service owes a duty of care to the owner of that service, whether or not any contract exists between them. The duty exists because damage to buried plant is a foreseeable consequence of excavation carried out without adequate care, not because of any agreement or notice.

Breach of that duty

Breach is measured against what a reasonably competent contractor would have done with the same information available at the time: the plans obtained, the survey commissioned, the technique chosen, the trial holes dug. What counts as adequate care on a given dig depends on the ground and the asset, which is the comparison set out on Suction, air and water — which suits this ground. Where a specification or scope of works set out a particular method and the contractor departed from it without justification, that departure is evidence going to breach.

The measure of loss

Where duty and breach are both established, the claimant still has to prove the loss and its extent. That ordinarily covers the cost of repair, any consequential loss the asset owner suffered from the outage, and in some cases the cost of the investigation needed to establish what happened. None of this is calculated from a fixed formula; it is assessed on the facts of the strike.

A principal contractor deciding how much of this risk sits with them on a given job should read the clause wording set out on Specifying it in a scope of works, and check what the operator on site is required to hold before work starts on What the operator needs to hold.

The USAG Utility Strike Damages Reports are the source most often cited for how often buried services get struck and what a strike costs once it has happened. The last edition was published in 2020, and no later edition has followed it. Any figure drawn from it describes conditions as they stood then.

Why the date matters

Strike frequency depends on things that move year to year: the density of buried plant, the survey methods in use before a dig, the mix of techniques on site, and how closely PAS 128:2022 quality levels are being specified and delivered. A figure from 2020 predates the current edition of PAS 128:2022, which has been in force since 26 April 2022, and predates whatever changes individual asset owners have since made to their plant-protection specifications. Treat the numbers as a description of that period.

What this means for a claim or a quote

Where a strike cost figure from this source is used to justify a technique, a price, or a risk allowance, the figure should carry its 2020 date alongside it, and whoever relies on it should know that no more recent edition exists to check it against. That is a limit on the evidence, not a reason to discard it: it is still the reference most people reach for, and stating its age is what lets a reader decide how much weight to put on it.

Where liability itself is the question, the relevant routes are set out separately, under the Water Services Regulation Authority framework and the ordinary law of negligence, in the other sections of this page.