Costing a stopping up order for a highway or footpath

A stopping up order cost has four parts, and the application fee is the smallest of them. The expensive items are the alternative route you have to design and build, the professional time in drafting the order and its plans, and the programme risk if somebody objects. On a scheme where a footpath crosses the development platform, the order is frequently the longest item on the critical path, and it is almost always started too late.

The orders themselves are straightforward in principle. Section 247 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 allows a highway to be stopped up or diverted to enable development authorised by a planning permission. Section 257 allows a local planning authority to stop up or divert a footpath, bridleway or restricted byway for the same purpose. Different decision makers, different procedures, different timescales.

When an order is needed to implement a permission

You need an order whenever development would obstruct a public right of way or a vehicular highway, even if nobody uses it. Public rights do not lapse through disuse, and a planning permission does not override them. Building across a definitive map footpath without an order is an obstruction of the highway, which is a criminal offence as well as a civil wrong.

Check three records at the outset. The definitive map and statement held by the surveying authority, which is the legal record of public rights of way. The list of streets maintainable at public expense. And the title plan, because an unadopted track in private ownership may still carry public rights by long use.

Where any doubt exists, resolve it before the layout is fixed. A footpath discovered at technical design stage is a redesign; one discovered at the start is a line on a drawing.

Section 247 orders and who makes them

A section 247 order deals with a highway, including a carriageway, and is made by the Secretary of State, with applications handled through the national transport casework process. The order authorises the stopping up or diversion so far as is necessary to enable the development to be carried out in accordance with the permission.

Section 253 is worth knowing about. It permits the order procedure to start before planning permission is granted, provided the application has been made. Running the two in parallel is how experienced developers recover months, and the risk is bounded: if permission is refused, the order is not made and you have lost the preparation cost rather than a year.

Section 248 deals with highways crossing or entering the route of a proposed new highway. Section 258 extinguishes public rights of way over land held for planning purposes, which is a different mechanism used by authorities rather than by applicants.

Advertisement, objection and inquiry stages

The procedure is where the cost and the time sit. In outline, for both routes: a draft order is prepared with a plan to the required standard, the order is advertised in a local newspaper and notices are posted on site and served on prescribed bodies, a period for objections runs, and the order is then made and confirmed if unopposed.

If objections are made and not withdrawn, the matter escalates. For a section 247 order that can mean a public inquiry or a hearing, or determination on written representations. For a section 257 order the authority cannot confirm an opposed order itself and must refer it to the Secretary of State.

The bodies that object are predictable. Local ramblers' groups and the British Horse Society on path orders, the parish council, individual residents who use the route, and statutory undertakers with apparatus in the highway. Most objections are about the quality of the replacement route rather than the principle, which is the useful thing to know.

Advertising costs are recoverable from the applicant, as are the authority's administrative costs on a section 257 order. The Department for Transport publishes a fee for section 247 applications and councils publish their own charges for path orders, both of which are revised from time to time, so check the current schedule rather than relying on a figure from a previous scheme.

Diversion against extinguishment

Ask for a diversion unless extinguishment is unavoidable. An order that removes a public right without replacing it attracts objections from everybody, and the decision maker has to weigh the loss of public amenity against the development's benefit.

A diversion that offers an equivalent or better route is a much easier case. Equivalent means comparable in length, surface, width, gradient, safety and attractiveness. A path diverted from a hedgerow route onto a 1.2 metre strip between two fences, with four right-angle turns, is not equivalent and the objectors will say so with photographs.

Where the new route runs through the development, design it as a route rather than as residual space. Overlooked, lit where appropriate, direct, and wide enough for two people and a dog to pass. That design decision does more to avoid an inquiry than any amount of drafting.

An illustrative example

Illustrative only: a 90 dwelling site crossed diagonally by a definitive map footpath. The developer makes a section 257 application through the local planning authority at the same time as the planning application, proposing a diversion along the site's new spine road and then onto a 3 metre wide landscaped corridor, slightly longer than the existing route but surfaced and lit. The parish council objects on length. The ramblers' group does not object, because the surface and width improve. The applicant agrees a planting specification and a commitment to construct the diversion before the existing route is closed, the parish withdraws, and the order is confirmed unopposed. Costs: the authority's charge, the advertisement, the order plan, the corridor construction and the landscaping.

Timescales and the effect on programme

Treat an order as a long lead item with its own programme line and its own owner. Unopposed orders take many months from application to confirmation. Opposed orders that go to an inquiry or to the Secretary of State take considerably longer. The published guidance for each route sets out current expected timescales and they do change.

Three sequencing rules save the most time.

1. Start the order application at the same time as the planning application, using section 253 for a section 247 order.
2. Consult the likely objectors informally before the order is advertised, and amend the route in response rather than defending it later.
3. Do not programme any works that touch the route until the order is confirmed and the alternative route is built.

The third rule is where schemes come unstuck. An order usually cannot take effect until the replacement route is available, so the alternative route is an early works item, not a final landscaping item. Get it into the Construction Traffic Management Plan and the phasing drawings.

Alternative routes and their design

Budget the replacement route properly. The cost items are earthworks and levels, surfacing to a specification the authority will adopt or maintain, drainage, boundary treatment on both sides, lighting where the route is urban, signage, and any structures such as a culvert crossing or steps with a ramped alternative.

Accessibility is the item most often under-designed. A diversion with steps where the original route was level will attract objection, and gradients, surface and gate furniture all have to work for someone with a pushchair or a mobility aid. Equality duties bear on the authority's decision.

Where the diversion connects to the public highway, a section 278 agreement with the highway authority may be needed for the junction works, and that is a separate agreement with its own fees, bonds and timescales.

Applying early rather than after permission

The single change that reduces cost is starting earlier. An order application prepared alongside the planning application gives you time to negotiate the route with objectors, lets the diversion be designed into the layout rather than squeezed around it, and removes the order from the post-permission critical path.

A Planning Statement should state the order position and the proposed route, and the Transport Statement should show the diversion on the access plans. Application fees for the planning permission itself are separate and calculated by floorspace and site area. PlanScope drafts the supporting statements structured to policy, and its pricing is one free report, £50 per report, or £150 per month on the Professional tier, with the order drafting and route design coming from your solicitor and engineer.

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.