Temporary loss of light from scaffolding and hoardings

Scaffolding and a site hoarding that block your window for six months are, in almost every case, not a planning matter at all. They are licensed by the highway authority under the Highways Act 1980, they are usually permitted development under Part 4 of the General Permitted Development Order while the building works continue, and the temporary loss of light they cause is not something the planning system measures. Anyone looking for scaffolding blocking light rights will find the remedies sit in highways law, in construction control and in private nuisance rather than in the planning file.

That is an unsatisfying answer, so it is worth knowing exactly where the controls do bite, because several of them are useful.

Whether temporary obstruction is a planning matter

Part 4 Class A of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order permits buildings, structures, works, plant or machinery required temporarily in connection with and for the duration of operations being carried out on, in, under or over land. Scaffolding, a site hoarding, a site cabin and a crane base all sit comfortably within it.

The condition attached to that class is the useful part. The right requires that, when the operations are completed, the structures are removed and the land reinstated. So a hoarding left standing after the building works have finished is no longer permitted development, and that is a planning breach the authority can act on.

The daylight and sunlight assessment process has nothing to say about temporary works. A daylight and sunlight assessment submitted with an application models the completed development against the neighbouring windows, because that is the permanent effect the policy is concerned with. The eighteen months of scaffolding in between are treated as an unavoidable consequence of building, and the related question of how construction stage light loss is handled is covered in temporary loss of daylight during construction.

Highway licences for scaffolding and hoardings

Where scaffolding stands on or over the public highway, including the footway, it needs a licence from the highway authority under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980. A hoarding enclosing a site adjoining the highway is dealt with under section 172, which allows the authority to require a hoarding and to control its form. Depositing building materials on the highway is covered by section 171.

Those licences carry conditions, and the conditions are where the control sits. Typical ones include:

• A defined licensed area and a defined duration, with an expiry date.
• A requirement to maintain a safe pedestrian route, usually of a stated minimum width, or to provide a signed diversion.
• Lighting of the structure at night, and reflective or high-visibility marking.
• Protection of street furniture, trees and utility covers.
• Public liability insurance at a stated level.
• A requirement to keep the footway clean and to reinstate on removal.

A licence does not consider loss of light to adjoining windows. It considers highway safety and the free passage of the public. That distinction explains why complaints about darkness get a short answer from the highways team and complaints about a blocked footway get action.

Duration limits and conditions

The licensed duration is the lever worth knowing about. Licences are granted for a stated period, often a month or a few months at a time, and renewed on application with a fee each time. An authority can refuse a renewal, impose a shorter period, or attach tighter conditions where the structure has been in place for an unreasonable time or has been poorly managed.

Where scaffolding has stood for a year with no visible work happening, the useful question to the highway authority is not "can you make them take it down because it is dark" but "is the licence current, what is its expiry date, and on what basis has it been renewed". That is a question the authority has to answer and it sometimes produces movement.

Keep a dated photographic record. A sequence of photographs showing no activity on site over several months is the evidence that supports a request not to renew.

Construction management plans and light

On larger schemes, a condition will require a construction management plan to be approved before works start, and the approved plan is enforceable. A Construction Management Plan typically covers working hours, deliveries and routeing, wheel washing, dust and noise control, site compound location, hoarding position and the protection of pedestrian routes.

Light is rarely a stated topic in such a plan, and hoarding position and height sometimes are. Where the plan fixes a hoarding line or a maximum height, a hoarding built taller or further out than the approved plan is a breach of condition, and the planning enforcement team can act on it.

Read the approved plan before complaining. Authorities publish approved documents on the planning register, and quoting the paragraph of the approved plan that is being breached produces a far better response than a general complaint about disruption.

Private law remedies for temporary interference

A right to light is a private easement, usually acquired by twenty years' uninterrupted enjoyment under the Prescription Act 1832. It protects against a substantial and permanent interference with the light to a defined aperture, and the usual remedies are an injunction or damages, pursued through the courts rather than the council.

Temporary obstruction during building works is a harder case. The courts treat a reasonable use of neighbouring land, including the construction works necessary to develop it, as something adjoining owners must tolerate to a degree. An action in private nuisance for temporary interference can succeed where the interference is substantial, unreasonable and prolonged beyond what the works required, and it will not succeed merely because scaffolding was inconvenient for a few months.

This is an area where early legal advice is worth more than a long correspondence with the council. The council has no power to award compensation for loss of light, and no power to require a developer to pay for temporary darkness.

Complaining effectively to the right body

Match the complaint to the body with the power.

1. Footway blocked, no safe pedestrian route, unlit structure at night, licence expired: the highway authority, quoting the street and the licence if you can identify it.
2. Hoarding remaining after works are complete, or built contrary to an approved construction management plan: planning enforcement, quoting the application reference.
3. Noise, dust or vibration outside permitted hours: environmental health, under the construction site controls in the Control of Pollution Act 1974.
4. Advertising on the hoarding beyond a site notice board: the planning authority, since most advertising needs advertisement consent.
5. Damage to your property, or prolonged obstruction of your own access: your solicitor, because those are private rights.

Keep each complaint to one issue addressed to one team. A single email covering darkness, noise, parking and an untidy pavement will be passed between departments and answered by none of them. The evidential standard for a planning objection is different again, and what carries weight on permanent light loss is set out in objecting on daylight grounds and the evidence that carries weight.

What cannot be controlled

Three things, stated plainly, because false hope wastes months.

There is no planning control over the amount of daylight temporarily lost to scaffolding or a hoarding, and no assessment the council will carry out. There is no compensation scheme. And a development that was granted permission is entitled to be built, which necessarily means a period of disruption for the neighbours.

What you can reasonably expect is that the licensed area is no bigger than it needs to be, that it is lit at night, that a safe footway is maintained, that the structures come down when the works finish, and that the approved construction management plan is followed. Those are real entitlements and they are worth pursuing.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. Browse the 66 report types if you want to understand which documents an applicant has to produce and what each one actually assesses.