The routing section of a construction management plan

The logistics section is the part of a construction management plan that the highway authority actually reads. Everything else in the document, the dust controls, the noise commitments, the waste targets, is assessed by other officers. The construction management plan routing section is what determines whether the highway officer recommends discharge or sends it back, and it is judged against one question: will this site put vehicles on streets that cannot take them.

Write it as a set of agreed facts rather than as a set of intentions. Routes that have been walked and agreed, vehicles that have been specified, movements that have been counted.

Routing agreed with the highway authority

Start from the strategic network and work inwards. The plan should show, on a drawing, the route from the nearest primary route to the site access, with the direction of travel for arrivals and departures where these differ.

The constraints that force a route change are physical and findable. Weight restrictions. Low bridges and their signed headroom. Width restrictions and pinch points. Bus routes and stops. Schools, with their arrival and departure times. Controlled parking zones and loading bans. Level crossings. Streets with a history of complaint, which the highway authority will know about and you will not.

Agree the route in a pre-application discussion and record the agreement. A route proposed without that discussion will be amended, and an amendment at condition discharge stage delays the start on site.

Then state how the route will be enforced. Route maps issued with every delivery instruction, a clause in subcontract orders, signage at the site entrance, and a record of any driver who departs from it.

Vehicle types and daily movement profiles

Name the vehicles. Rigid tippers, articulated deliveries, concrete mixers, concrete pumps, low loaders for plant, mobile cranes and, on constrained sites, the crane erection sequence.

Then give the movement profile by phase, because the peaks are what matter. Demolition and muck away generate the highest vehicle numbers on most sites and they arrive at the start, when the neighbours have not yet adjusted. Substructure brings concrete deliveries in concentrated pours. Superstructure brings steel or precast on long vehicles. Fit-out brings many smaller movements spread across the day.

A table of two way movements per day for each phase, with the peak day identified, is what the officer needs. Averages across the whole programme hide the problem.

Where the scheme is large enough to have required a Transport Assessment for its operational traffic, the construction figures should be presented on a comparable basis so the two can be read together.

Holding areas and call-off systems

Queuing on the public highway is the failure mode that generates complaints, enforcement attention and, occasionally, a stop notice.

The answer is a booking system. Every delivery is allocated a slot, drivers telephone from a designated holding point before approaching, and they are called forward only when the previous vehicle has cleared. The holding point should be a real location, named in the plan, off the local street network, with the operator's agreement where it is third party land.

On tight sites the plan also needs a marshalling arrangement: a banksman at the gate, a defined reversing area inside the site if reversing is unavoidable, and a rule that vehicles are not permitted to reverse from the highway into the site.

State what happens when a vehicle arrives without a slot. The honest answer is that it is turned away, and saying so in the document is what makes the system credible.

Swept path analysis at pinch points

Draw it rather than describe it. Swept path analysis should be provided for the site access in both directions, for any junction on the route with a tight radius, and for the internal manoeuvring area.

Use a design vehicle that matches the largest vehicle named in the plan, and state which vehicle and which standard dimensions were used. Show the tracking over a survey drawing with kerb lines, street furniture, parked vehicle bays and any overhanging structure, because the constraint is often a lamp column rather than the kerb.

Where the swept path clips a kerb or a verge, say so and propose the remedy: a temporary kerb protection, a build out, an agreed suspension of parking bays, or a smaller vehicle. An unremedied conflict shown on a drawing is better than one omitted, because the officer will find it.

Overhead constraints deserve their own check. Trees, canopies and cables restrict high vehicles, and a mobile crane arriving on a route surveyed only at ground level is a familiar and avoidable problem.

Wheel washing and road cleaning

Mud on the highway is an offence and it is the single most frequent source of complaint from neighbours during groundworks.

Specify the wheel washing arrangement rather than promising one. State the type, whether a drive through unit, a jet wash bay or a rumble grid with spray, its location on the site plan, the water supply and the interceptor or settlement arrangement for the run off.

Add the road sweeping commitment: the frequency, the extent of highway covered, and the trigger for an additional sweep. A mechanical sweeper on call, with a named contractor, is a stronger commitment than a note about keeping the road clean.

Both belong on the site logistics drawing as well as in the text. Officers check whether the wheel wash is positioned so that a vehicle cannot leave the site without passing through it, and on a surprising number of plans it is not.

Deliveries outside peak hours

Working hours and delivery hours are different things and should be conditioned separately.

Typical construction hours in England are set by condition, commonly on weekdays from early morning to early evening, with reduced Saturday hours and no Sunday or bank holiday working, though the specific hours vary by authority. Delivery hours are often tighter, avoiding the morning and evening highway peaks and school arrival and departure times.

Where an out of hours delivery is unavoidable, such as an abnormal indivisible load or a crane lift requiring a road closure, the plan should set out the notification procedure, the consents required and the neighbour communication that will precede it. Temporary traffic management on the public highway needs its own permission from the highway authority, and a planning condition does not grant it.

Deliveries also interact with the waste strategy, since the same gate handles arisings leaving the site. Reconcile the movement numbers in the logistics section with the forecast tonnages in the Site Waste Management Plan, because a mismatch between the two is an easy inconsistency for a reviewer to spot.

Monitoring and the complaints procedure

A logistics plan without a complaints procedure is an aspiration.

Name a site contact with a telephone number and an email address, state the hours the contact is available and who covers it outside those hours, and commit to a response time. Display the details on the hoarding.

Keep a log of complaints with the date, the nature, the response and the closing action, and make it available to the authority on request. Most authorities will accept that in place of routine reporting, and it is the record that protects the contractor when a single persistent complainant escalates.

Set out what is monitored: delivery slot compliance, route compliance, wheel wash operation, road condition and working hours. Then state the review trigger, meaning the point at which the plan is revisited and resubmitted.

A Construction Management Plan carries the environmental controls and site organisation, while a Construction Traffic Management Plan carries the routing and highway elements. Some authorities condition both and some condition one covering everything, so check the condition wording before deciding which document to write.

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

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