Stopping up and diversion orders under section 247

A stopping up order under section 247 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 removes public highway rights over land so that a development can be built where the highway currently runs. Planning permission on its own does nothing to those rights. They survive the grant, and a building put up across an adopted highway remains an obstruction the highway authority can require you to remove. So on any scheme that swallows a cul-de-sac head, a service road, an alleyway or a strip of verge, the order belongs on the programme from the day the layout is fixed.

What the order actually does

Section 247 lets the Secretary of State authorise the stopping up or diversion of a highway where that is necessary to enable development to be carried out in accordance with a planning permission. The order extinguishes the public's right of passage over the length described. It does not transfer ownership of the land, it does not deal with private rights of way or restrictive covenants, and it does not move the apparatus that statutory undertakers have buried under the carriageway.

Ownership matters less here than people expect. The subsoil beneath an adopted highway frequently belongs to the adjoining owners already, with the highway authority holding only the surface and the rights over it. What the order buys you is the removal of the public right.

Two neighbouring powers sit alongside it. Section 248 covers a highway that crosses or enters the route of a proposed new highway, and section 249 extinguishes vehicular rights so that a street can become a pedestrian route, which is the power behind most town centre pedestrianisation.

Section 247 for highways, section 257 for paths

Get the wrong section and you lose months. The test is what the route legally is, not what it looks like on the ground: a tarmac strip between two gardens can be a public footpath, an unadopted lane can carry no public rights at all, and the definitive map is the place to check before anything else.

A section 257 order is the cheaper and usually quicker of the two, because an unopposed order can be confirmed by the council itself. Where objections are duly made and not withdrawn, the order has to go to the Secretary of State, and it is then decided by written representations, a hearing or an inquiry in the same way as an appeal. Diversion orders also tend to carry a certification step, so the order does not come into force until the authority confirms that the replacement route has been made available on the ground.

Who makes the order and when it can be made

The order cannot be made until planning permission exists. That is the rule that catches people out, because it seems to force a sequence of permission first, order second, and a long wait in between.

Section 253 softens it. The procedure for publishing and advertising a draft order may be started before permission is granted, so the advertisement, the objection period and the planning application can run together. The order itself still cannot be made until the permission is in place. On a scheme where the highway question is settled early and the planning issues are the slow part, that overlap is worth having.

Applications for section 247 orders are handled by the casework team at the Department for Transport rather than by the local council, which surprises developers who assume the highway authority decides. The highway authority is a consultee with a strong voice, and it will usually want the substitute arrangements agreed before it says anything supportive.

The objection period and what happens next

Section 252 sets the procedure. A draft order is published in a local newspaper and in the London Gazette, notices go up at each end of the length affected, and copies go to the highway authority, the council and the statutory undertakers. Objections may be made for at least 28 days from publication.

If nobody objects, the order can be made on the papers. If an objection is duly made and not withdrawn, the Secretary of State must either hold a local inquiry or give the objector an opportunity to be heard before making the order.

Statutory undertakers are the most common objectors, and their objections are rarely about principle. A water main or a high voltage cable under the length being stopped up gives them an interest that has to be resolved, either by diverting the apparatus under the street works legislation or by agreeing that the rights continue over the retained land. Settle that by correspondence before the draft order is advertised and most of those objections never appear.

Programme risk and how to reduce it

Unopposed orders are measured in months. Opposed ones that reach an inquiry are measured in considerably more, and the date that matters is when the order comes into force, which is later than the day it is made.

A few habits take time out of it. Search the definitive map and the list of streets at the appraisal stage rather than after the layout is drawn. Ask the highway authority for its view on a substitute route before the layout is committed, because a scheme that keeps a walkable connection through the site is far easier to defend than one that simply deletes a link. Where a path crosses the site, consider designing the development around a diverted line rather than an extinguished one. And start the section 253 advertisement early where the permission looks straightforward.

The need for an order is itself a planning matter. Loss of a public route, and the quality of any replacement, are the sort of considerations an officer weighs in the report, so they sit with the other material considerations the law allows rather than in a separate technical box. Say something about them in the planning statement instead of leaving the officer to discover the issue from a consultee.

Where section 278 works are the answer instead

Plenty of schemes that people assume need a stopping up order need nothing of the kind. If you are altering the highway rather than taking it away, widening a bellmouth, building a new access, moving a kerb line or putting in a pedestrian refuge, the instrument is an agreement under section 278 of the Highways Act 1980 with the highway authority, paid for by the developer and secured by a condition or a planning obligation.

New estate roads that will become public follow the adoption route under section 38 instead. The three sit together on most major sites: a section 247 order to clear the old road, a section 278 agreement for the works at the junction, and a section 38 agreement for the new streets. Confusing them wastes a quarter.

There is also a route through the magistrates' court under section 116 of the Highways Act 1980, available to the highway authority where a highway is unnecessary. It is not a developer's tool, and where development is the reason for the change, the planning route is the correct one.

The plans and evidence a casework team expects

The submission is short and exacting. A plan that does not match the description in the draft order comes straight back.

1. An order plan at a stated metric scale, with the length to be stopped up shown in a distinctive colour and any substitute highway shown in another, with the extent of the public right marked from boundary to boundary rather than to the edge of the tarmac.
2. A location plan showing the site in context, with the planning application boundary.
3. The decision notice and drawing numbers for the permission relied on, or the application reference where section 253 is being used.
4. A short statement of why the stopping up is necessary to enable the development, tied to the approved layout.
5. Evidence of what happens to pedestrian and vehicular access for anyone who relies on the length affected, including frontagers and refuse and emergency access.
6. Confirmation from the statutory undertakers about apparatus, and from the highway authority about any substitute route and its future maintenance.

Highway drawings supporting the layout should be internally consistent with the order plan, which is where the tracking work matters. If the substitute route has to take a refuse vehicle, the geometry needs to prove it, and that is the same exercise as the swept path analysis highway officers expect to see on the access drawings.

Where the site sits inside a wider evidence base, the stopping up narrative usually lives in the planning statement and the transport work rather than in a document of its own. PlanScope drafts those supporting documents from your site details and flags the facts it cannot verify, and you can see the full set on the report types index.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a site with a highway to be stopped up is likely to need.

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.