Hoarding, crane and oversail sections of a management plan

The hoarding, crane and oversail sections of a construction management plan exist because the planning authority wants to know, before it grants permission, how a building will be built on a site with no spare room around it. Crane oversail on a construction plan is the section most often written as an aspiration, and it is the one most likely to be undeliverable, because the land the jib passes over belongs to someone else.

None of the three sections is granted by the planning permission. Each depends on a separate consent from the highway authority or from a private owner, and the management plan should name the consent rather than implying that approval of the plan settles the matter.

Why these sections exist

A condition requiring a construction management plan is usually imposed because the authority is worried about something specific: a narrow footway on a shopping street, a school entrance, a bus stop, or a neighbour with a right of way. The plan is the mechanism for controlling the thing the officer could not control through the design.

That means the sections should answer the worry rather than recite good practice. A plan that describes general principles of considerate construction and does not say where the hoarding line goes has not done its job, and discharge of the condition stalls.

Write each section so that a highways officer, a case officer and a site manager can each find what they need in it. Those are three different readers with three different questions.

Hoarding line, footway closures and licences

The hoarding section needs a drawing before it needs words. What belongs on it is the hoarding line dimensioned from the site boundary and from the kerb, the retained footway width, gates and their swing, the viewing panels and signage positions, the lighting, and the extent of any footway or carriageway takeover.

A hoarding standing on or over the public highway needs a licence from the highway authority under the Highways Act 1980, with conditions on lighting, maintenance and reinstatement, and usually a charge based on area and duration. Where the footway has to be closed entirely, a temporary traffic regulation order under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984 is needed, with its own notice period measured in weeks.

The retained width is where plans are rejected. A diverted pedestrian route has to work for a wheelchair user and a person with a pushchair, which means a usable width maintained for the length of the diversion, a level or ramped surface, tactile treatment at any crossing point, and lighting. The duty not to discriminate under the Equality Act 2010 applies to the temporary arrangement as much as to the finished building, and an Equalities Impact Assessment on a larger scheme should deal with the construction phase rather than only the end state.

Crane positions and oversail of third party land

A tower crane jib that swings over neighbouring land, even at height and even when carrying nothing, is a trespass unless the neighbour has agreed to it. There is no statutory right to oversail and no mechanism in the planning system that creates one. An injunction is available to a neighbour who objects, and it can stop a site.

The section should therefore show the crane base position, the jib radius drawn as a circle on a plan with the adjoining ownerships marked, the over-sailing arc over each neighbouring title, the proposed out-of-service slewing arrangement, and the status of any oversail agreement. Where agreements are still being negotiated, say so plainly rather than drawing the arc and hoping.

Negotiating an oversail licence takes longer than people expect, because the neighbour has no obligation to agree and every reason to extract value. Start before the permission is granted. On a constrained site the crane strategy sometimes drives the construction method, pushing a scheme towards a mobile crane and a longer programme, and that decision belongs in the appraisal rather than in month three on site.

And aviation is the other constraint. Where the site sits within an aerodrome safeguarding area or on a helicopter route, the crane height may need agreement with the safeguarding authority, and tall cranes may need lighting.

Scaffold over the public highway

Scaffolding standing on the footway, or a gantry over it, needs its own licence from the highway authority with its own conditions, typically covering a lit and signed pedestrian route, protection fans, loading restrictions and inspection records.

The practical points that cause refusal are a scaffold base that narrows the footway below the usable minimum, a structure that obstructs a bus stop or a fire hydrant, inadequate headroom under a gantry, and a design that has not been checked against the loading the highway surface can take. Where the footway cannot accommodate the scaffold, the alternatives are a lane takeover with a traffic order, a cantilevered or hung scaffold off the building, or a mast climber, and each changes the programme and the cost.

Pedestrian management and accessibility

Treat the diversion as a piece of design rather than as a set of barriers. The route needs a continuous, level or gently ramped surface, barriers that a long cane can detect as well as the eye, lighting at night, clear signage from the point where the normal route ends, and a maintained width that two people can pass in.

Work to the recognised code of practice for street works and road works, which sets out the signing, lighting and guarding arrangements the highway authority will expect, and record the inspection regime in the plan. The commonest complaint during construction is not noise, it is a pedestrian route that has been allowed to degrade.

Consents that sit outside planning

Set them out as a table in the plan with owner, status and expected date. For most central sites the list runs to: highway licences for hoarding, scaffold and deposits, a temporary traffic regulation order, a section 278 agreement for permanent highway works, oversail licences from each affected neighbour, party wall awards under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, asset protection agreements where a railway, canal or sewer is adjacent, utility diversion agreements, and the construction phase plan required under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015.

None of those is secured by the planning permission, and the discharge of a construction management plan condition does not grant any of them. State that in the plan. It protects the applicant, and it stops a case officer believing the condition has resolved something it has not.

The vehicle routing, delivery booking and wheel washing side of the same exercise belongs in a Construction Traffic Management Plan, with the wider site controls in the Construction Management Plan itself. Keep the two consistent, because they are read together and the contradictions are easy to spot.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Licensing procedures, notice periods and charging differ between highway authorities and change, so confirm the position with the authority and take legal advice on oversail and party wall matters before relying on anything here.

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