Kerbside management for a town centre scheme

Kerbside management planning town centre work fails for one structural reason: the kerb is not in the applicant's control, and it is not in the planning authority's control either. A loading bay, a disabled bay, a taxi rank or the removal of resident permit eligibility all need a traffic regulation order made by the local highway authority under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, through a statutory procedure that runs on its own timetable and can end in the order not being made at all.

Treat that as a programme risk from the start and the scheme works. Treat it as a condition to be discharged and you will be explaining a delay to a funder.

Who controls the kerb

The highway authority controls the kerb. In a two-tier area that is the county council, not the district that determines the planning application. In a unitary area it is the same body but a different department with a different budget and a different committee. In London it is the borough for borough roads and Transport for London for the Transport for London road network.

So a town centre scheme can need the agreement of two separate authorities, and the one that grants planning permission has no power to direct the other. Officers will talk to each other. They will not bind each other.

Two further parties sit in the background. The police, as a statutory consultee on orders affecting traffic movement, and the parking enforcement team, who have to be able to enforce whatever is drawn. An order that cannot be enforced because the signage and lining do not match the schedule is worse than no order.

What a traffic regulation order can and cannot do

An order regulates the use of the highway. In practice that covers the changes a development usually needs:

• creating or moving a loading bay, with hours of operation
• creating a disabled persons' parking place
• changing permit eligibility within a controlled parking zone, including excluding a new development from it
• waiting and loading restrictions, double yellow lines and kerb blips
• one-way working, banned turns and changes to the direction of travel
• creating or removing paid parking places and changing their tariff structure

What an order cannot do is bind the highway authority to keep the arrangement in place, and it cannot be made by anyone else. A developer promotes an order by asking the authority to make it and paying for the process. The authority retains its statutory discretion throughout.

Physical works in the highway are separate again. Reconstructing a footway, building out a kerb or installing a crossing is carried out under an agreement made under section 278 of the Highways Act 1980, and the order and the works usually need to land together.

The statutory procedure and its timetable

The procedure for a permanent order sits in the Local Authorities' Traffic Orders (Procedure) (England and Wales) Regulations 1996. The sequence is fixed:

1. The authority settles the draft order and the plans that go with it
2. Notice of the proposal is published in a local newspaper and posted on street, with the documents available for inspection
3. A period of at least 21 days runs for objections and representations
4. The authority considers the objections, and may hold a public inquiry
5. The order is made, or made with modifications, or not made
6. Notice of making is published and the signs and lines go in

Six months from instruction to signs on the ground is a reasonable planning assumption for a straightforward order where nobody objects. Nine to twelve months is common where a controlled parking zone amendment is involved, because the consultation is wider and the authority may batch amendments into an annual review.

Temporary orders are a different instrument under section 14 of the 1984 Act, used for works, and they cannot be used to deliver a permanent arrangement. Do not let a contractor's temporary closure be mistaken for the permanent order in a programme.

Objections and where an order fails

Objections to a kerbside change in a town centre come from a predictable set of people, and they come in volume. Nearby residents who lose a parking space. Traders who believe loading will be harder. Taxi drivers whose rank is moved. Disabled users whose bay is relocated further from the shops they use.

Two patterns decide outcomes. An order that takes capacity away from an existing user group without replacing it fails more often than one that reallocates within the same group. And an order supported by survey evidence of actual kerbside use, rather than by assertion about expected use, survives committee far better.

So commission the evidence. A kerbside occupancy survey, taken across a weekday, a Saturday and an evening, recording what each length of kerb is used for and for how long, costs little and answers most objections directly. Where the scheme reduces general parking, pair it with a parking stress survey of the surrounding streets so the authority can see the displacement effect rather than imagine it.

An honest caveat. Some orders fail for political reasons that no evidence addresses, and on a marginal scheme that risk cannot be removed, only priced.

Who pays, and through which agreement

The developer pays. The mechanisms are two, and they do different jobs.

A planning obligation under section 106 secures a sum to cover the authority's costs of promoting the order: officer time, advertising, the inquiry if there is one, and the signs and lines. Authorities usually quote a fixed fee per order with a contingency, and most publish it.

A section 278 agreement covers the physical works where the kerb line, footway or carriageway is altered. It carries its own design approval, bond and inspection fee regime, and the works are built to the authority's specification.

Where an order is promoted and not made, the money spent is not recoverable. That matters for the deal, and it is worth saying so to the funder before the order goes to advertisement rather than after.

Conditions that work and conditions that cannot

A planning condition cannot require the highway authority to make a traffic regulation order, because the authority's power to make one is a discretion conferred by a different statute and the planning authority cannot fetter it. Conditions drafted in that form are unlawful and, more practically, undischargeable.

What works instead:

The reasonable efforts version with a stated fallback is the one worth negotiating for. It commits the developer to promote and fund the order, and it tells both sides what happens if the order is not confirmed, usually a management plan dealing with servicing from the existing kerb arrangement.

Programming an order against occupation

Three sequencing points save schemes.

Start the order before planning permission is granted, not after. Nothing prevents a developer approaching the highway authority at pre-application stage and asking it to begin preparing a draft, and the six months then runs in parallel with determination rather than after it.

Keep the servicing strategy workable without the order. If the scheme can be serviced, badly but lawfully, from the existing kerb, then a failed or delayed order is an inconvenience rather than a stop. Build that fallback into the servicing plan and reference it in the Transport Assessment so the authority can see it has been thought about.

Tie monitoring to the right trigger. Travel plan monitoring and kerbside review are often bundled into one obligation with a single trigger date, which goes wrong when the order slips. Separate them, and link the Travel Plan baseline survey to occupation rather than to the order.

Where the scheme relies on car club provision or on accessible bays near the entrance, the order detail and the planning drawings have to agree down to the bay dimensions. Our notes on car club bays and accessible parking dimensions cover what each needs, and servicing yards deals with the off-street alternative where the kerb cannot take the load.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which transport documents a town centre scheme of this size is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority and the local highway authority, or with a qualified transport planner, 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.