Construction traffic routing agreements with the highway authority

The routing plan is the part of a construction traffic management plan that the highway authority actually reads. Everything else in the document describes your site. The route describes what happens on their network, and it is the bit they will be asked about when a resident rings the council about a lorry reversing into a cul-de-sac at seven in the morning.

Agree the route before you submit, not after. A condition requiring a routing plan to be approved in writing before development begins is straightforward to discharge if the highway officer has already seen the route and said yes. It can take three months if they have not.

What the plan has to show

A routing plan that gets approved first time contains the following, and very little else.

1. A plan at a legible scale showing the route from the point it leaves the primary route network to the site access, with the direction of travel marked for both arrival and departure.
2. The vehicle types proposed, by phase, with the largest vehicle identified and a swept path analysis at every junction and pinch point where the largest vehicle turns.
3. Movement numbers, by phase, expressed as two way movements per day and at the peak hour. Demolition, muck away, concrete pours and steel deliveries produce very different profiles.
4. The access and egress arrangements at the site, including visibility splays, gates set back from the carriageway, and where vehicles wait if the site is not ready for them.
5. Wheel cleaning arrangements and the length of hardstanding between the wheel wash and the highway.
6. Signage, including advance warning signs and any temporary traffic management.
7. Hours of delivery, and the booking system that keeps deliveries inside them.
8. A named site contact with a telephone number that is answered during working hours.

Numbers matter more than adjectives. An officer can assess forty two-way HGV movements a day. They cannot assess "a limited number of deliveries".

Choosing a route the authority will accept

Highway officers reject routes for a short list of reasons, and you can check all of them before you draw the line.

Weight and height restrictions come first. Structures teams hold the records for weak bridges and restricted structures, and a route that crosses one is dead on arrival. Where the route joins the strategic road network, National Highways is the authority to consult, and the approach set out in the government's strategic road network circular applies.

Then look at what the route passes. Schools with a pedestrian gate on the carriageway are the single most common reason a route is refused or restricted to hours outside drop off and pick up. After that: unclassified rural lanes without passing places, residential streets with parking on both sides where two HGVs cannot pass, bus routes with narrow sections, cycle routes where a lorry would need to cross a segregated lane, and air quality management areas where the authority is under pressure on concentrations.

The best routes are boring. Primary and distributor roads for the longest possible distance, one turn off, and a short final leg with no residential frontage. Where that is not available, be honest about it and propose mitigation rather than hoping the officer does not notice.

Damage surveys before anything moves

Ask for a pre-works condition survey of the carriageway and footway along the final leg of the route. Do it jointly with the highway authority, or at least invite them, and record it on video with a date stamp as well as in photographs.

This protects both sides. Without it, every pre-existing crack on a rural lane becomes your liability at the end of the job, and section 59 of the Highways Act 1980 gives the authority a route to recover the cost of extraordinary damage caused by excessive weight or traffic. With it, the argument is about what changed rather than about what is there.

Where the route includes a weak carriageway, expect the authority to ask for a bond or a section 106 contribution towards repair, and to require a post-completion survey against the baseline. Agree the survey extent, the method and who holds the record at the same time as you agree the route.

Wheel washing, mud and the things that generate complaints

Depositing mud on the highway is an offence under the Highways Act 1980, and it is the issue that turns a tolerant neighbourhood into an organised one.

A working arrangement needs a wheel wash sized for the vehicles using it, a run of hardstanding long enough that tyres are dry before they reach the carriageway, a road sweeper on call rather than on a schedule, and somebody whose job it is to walk the final leg at the end of each day. Jet washing the road instead of cleaning the wheels moves silt into the gullies and creates a second problem.

Holding areas deserve the same attention. If there is nowhere on site for a vehicle to wait, drivers will wait on the street, and the first complaint will arrive within a week. A booking system with half hour slots and a named holding location off the highway is worth more than any amount of drafting.

Hours, and where the plan meets the planning conditions

Construction hours are normally controlled by planning condition, and delivery hours can be tighter than working hours. The routing plan has to sit inside both. Where the authority restricts deliveries past a school, the practical result is a delivery window that starts after 09:30, and the programme has to absorb that.

The routing plan usually forms part of a Construction Traffic Management Plan, which in turn sits alongside the wider Construction Management Plan covering dust, noise, hoarding and site welfare. Keep the route in one document and cross-refer, rather than drawing it twice with two sets of arrows.

Where a temporary construction access is proposed rather than using the permanent one, that has its own consent and design issues, covered in our note on temporary construction accesses and the conditions that control them. Where the final leg is a national speed limit rural road, the visibility and junction standards are a separate discussion again, set out in access onto a national speed limit rural road.

Changing the route mid-contract

Routes change. A bridge closes, a neighbouring development takes the same lane, or the contractor changes and brings a different vehicle fleet.

If the route is approved under a planning condition, a revised plan has to be submitted and approved in writing before it is used. Treat that as an eight week task, not a phone call, unless the officer confirms otherwise. Where the change is temporary and driven by a road closure outside your control, tell the authority in writing on the day you find out and propose the diversion yourself. Authorities are pragmatic about closures they already know about.

Keep a log of approved versions. On a two year build with three contractors, the version in use on site and the version approved by the council drift apart quietly.

What happens when the route is ignored

The planning enforcement route is a breach of condition notice under section 187A of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990, and there is no appeal against one. The highway authority has its own powers, including recovery of extraordinary expenses and, on a persistent problem, traffic regulation orders that make the informal route unusable.

Neither is what you want. The practical control is contractual: put the approved route into the subcontract documents, brief drivers with a one page map, and make the site contact the person who gets the call rather than the council. Most breaches are a delivery driver following a satellite navigation system, not a policy decision.

PlanScope drafts construction management documents from your project details and flags site specific facts it cannot verify rather than filling them in. Reports should be reviewed before submission, and swept path analysis and any highway design work should be produced by a suitably qualified transport professional.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.