Section 278 agreements: programme, bond and approval

A section 278 agreement is the legal mechanism under the Highways Act 1980 that allows a developer to carry out and pay for works to the existing public highway. Planning permission does not authorise a single spade in the adopted carriageway. If your scheme needs a new junction, a widened access, a signalised crossing, footway works, a bus stop relocation or traffic calming, that work happens under a section 278 agreement with the local highway authority, or with National Highways where the strategic road network is involved.

Its sibling is section 38, which covers the adoption of new streets built inside the development so that the authority takes them over. Many schemes need both, and the two processes run in parallel with different documentation.

What triggers the agreement

Anything altering the layout, alignment, drainage, signing, lighting, signals or capacity of the adopted highway.

Simple vehicle crossings are usually handled through the authority's minor works route rather than a full agreement. Beyond that the threshold rises quickly. A new priority junction, a right turn lane, a pedestrian refuge, a controlled crossing, a change to on-street parking restrictions or a resurfaced and realigned footway will all take the full process.

The requirement normally arrives through the planning process. The highway authority's consultation response on the application asks for works, and those works then appear either as a condition requiring them to be completed before occupation or as an obligation in a section 106 agreement. The engineering evidence supporting the design usually sits in the Transport Assessment or, on smaller schemes, in the Transport Statement.

The technical approval process

Technical approval is where programmes slip, and it is worth understanding as a sequence rather than as a single event.

1. Preliminary design, agreed in principle with the authority's development engineer, establishing the extent of works and the standards being applied.
2. A road safety audit at preliminary design stage, carried out by a team independent of the designer, with an audit report and a designer's response agreeing or departing from each recommendation.
3. Detailed design submission, including drawings, calculations, drainage design, lighting design, signal design where relevant, materials specification and a construction phase traffic management proposal.
4. Technical check by the authority, usually producing comments and a resubmission. More than one round is normal.
5. A further safety audit at detailed design stage, with responses agreed.
6. Approval in principle for any structure, which brings its own longer process where a retaining wall or a culvert is involved.

Departures from standard require formal approval and take longer again. Where a departure is unavoidable, raise it at the preliminary stage rather than presenting it as a fait accompli in the detailed submission.

The audits sit outside the highway authority's own check, and the audit team's recommendations frequently change the design after the client thinks it is settled. Build a round of design revision into the programme after each audit rather than assuming acceptance.

Fees, bonds and commuted sums

The works cost is the visible number and it is rarely the whole cost.

Design check fees cover the authority's engineering time reviewing your submission, typically charged as a percentage of the works value or on a time basis. Supervision and inspection fees cover the authority's site presence during construction and are charged separately.

A bond or equivalent surety secures the authority against non-completion, sized on the estimated works cost, and released after completion and the end of the maintenance period. Getting the bond in place takes time with the provider, so start it before you need it.

Commuted sums cover the authority's future maintenance liability for items it would not otherwise carry: traffic signals, non-standard surfacing, planting, street furniture, sustainable drainage features in the highway. These can be a large number and they are calculated by the authority's own formula. Ask for the calculation early. Substituting a standard material for a decorative one sometimes removes the charge entirely, and that is a conversation to have while the design is still on paper.

Programme risk and road space

Approval is not permission to start. Works in the highway are coordinated under the street works regime, which means booking road space and obtaining a permit from the authority's street works team.

Availability is the constraint nobody prices. A corridor with utility works already programmed, an event, or a neighbouring development's own works can push a start date back by months. Many authorities also apply embargoes on works in town centres and on principal routes at busy periods.

Add the practical items: traffic management design and approval, temporary traffic regulation orders where a road closure or a change to restrictions is needed, and the statutory notice periods that go with them. A temporary order has its own advertisement and notice requirements, and it is a frequent cause of a delayed start.

Where construction traffic itself is the issue rather than the permanent works, the Construction Traffic Management Plan is the document that ties the two together, and highway officers prefer to see them coordinated.

Coordination with the planning condition

The most common programme failure on a small development is a planning condition requiring the access works to be completed before first occupation, agreed without checking how long the highway process takes.

Read that condition before it is imposed. A Grampian condition requiring completion of works on land outside your control needs a realistic trigger, and a condition tied to occupation of the first dwelling on a phased scheme can stop a whole development while a signal design is audited.

Three habits help. Start the technical approval process during the planning application rather than after the decision. Ask for the trigger to be tied to a later occupation point or to a phase. And where the works depend on a third party, say so at the time so that the condition wording reflects it.

Completion, inspection and release

At completion the authority inspects the works, and a final safety audit is normally carried out after the scheme opens.

A maintenance period follows, during which the developer remains responsible for defects. At its end, a further inspection is carried out, outstanding defects are made good, and the bond is released. Keep the as-built records, the test certificates and the audit responses, because the release inspection will ask for them.

Two things are worth doing before the contractor leaves site. Walk the works with the authority's inspector and agree the snagging list in writing, rather than receiving it by post three weeks later. And check that any temporary traffic order has been revoked and the permanent signing and lining matches the approved drawings, since a discrepancy found a year later becomes your problem to correct.

Where the works serve a phased development, ask whether partial release of the bond is possible as each element completes. Authorities differ on this, and a bond held in full for five years while a site builds out is working capital you could otherwise use.

None of this is difficult work. It is simply longer than most appraisals allow, and it is the process most often discovered late. You can review the transport documents by category while scoping a scheme, and Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which transport reports your site is likely to need.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local highway 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.