Temporary road closures and street works during construction

A temporary road closure for construction is a highways consent, not a planning one, and the two systems run on different clocks. Planning permission can be granted in eight weeks. A temporary traffic regulation order for a full closure on a busy street can take three months from application to the first cone, because it has to be advertised, and nothing in your planning conditions obliges the highway authority to hurry.

The practical consequence is simple. Work out which highway consents the build needs at the same time as you draft the construction traffic management plan, not after the contractor is appointed.

Which consent applies to which activity

Most authorities have separate application forms and separate teams for each of these. A single site can easily need five of the seven, and they are not processed together.

In London, work affecting a red route needs Transport for London rather than the borough. On or near the strategic road network, National Highways is the authority.

Notice periods and lead times

The lead times are the part that damages programmes. Under the permit schemes operated by most authorities, the notice periods run roughly as follows, though each authority publishes its own scheme and the detail varies.

1. Major works, meaning works expected to last more than ten days or needing a traffic regulation order, usually need advance notice around three months ahead, with the permit application itself closer to the start.
2. Standard works, four to ten days, usually need ten working days.
3. Minor works, up to three days, usually need around three working days.
4. Immediate works, meaning emergency or urgent activity, are notified within two hours of starting.

A temporary traffic regulation order under section 14(1) has to be advertised in a local newspaper and notified to the emergency services and bus operators. That advertising requirement is why three months is a realistic figure rather than a cautious one. Where the works will last five days or less, a section 14(2) notice avoids the advertisement and is much faster.

Orders for works are limited to 18 months, which is comfortable for most schemes and tight for a long infrastructure job.

Scaffold, hoarding and skip licences

These are the routine ones and they are usually granted within a couple of weeks, subject to conditions that the contractor should read before pricing.

A scaffolding licence normally requires public liability insurance at a stated level, a lit and fendered structure, a maintained pedestrian route of a minimum width, usually 1.2 metres or more, and a fixed expiry date. Where the footway cannot carry a safe route past the scaffold, the authority will ask for a pedestrian walkway under the scaffold or a footway closure with a signed diversion, which is a separate consent.

Hoarding licences carry the same insurance requirement plus obligations on appearance in conservation areas and on lighting where the hoarding narrows the footway. Section 172 puts a duty on the person carrying out the work to erect a hoarding where a building is being constructed or altered near a street, so this is not optional on most urban sites.

Skip permits usually limit the position, require reflective markings and lamps, and prohibit placement on a footway or within a stated distance of a junction. Charges are per skip per week, so a long fit-out with a permanent skip position costs more than people budget.

Working in the footway and reinstatement standards

Any excavation in the highway, whether by a utility or by your own contractor under a section 50 licence, has to be reinstated to the Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways. That specification is a statutory code under the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, and it sets the layer thicknesses, materials and surface tolerances.

The reinstatement carries a guarantee period, two years for most openings and longer for deep excavations. If the surface fails within that period, the party that opened the ground pays to put it right.

Two practical points follow. Use a contractor with operatives holding the street works qualification, because the authority can and does check cards on site. And photograph the existing surface before you open it, because disputes about pre-existing defects are common and unrecorded.

Footway reinstatement in a conservation area with stone flags or setts is materially more expensive than tarmac, and the authority will require like-for-like materials. Price it properly.

Coordinating with utility connections

The connection programme is usually the longest lead item on a small development and the one most often left late. Electricity, gas, water, wastewater and telecoms each have their own application process, their own quotation stage and their own works programme.

Where several undertakers need to open the same stretch of footway, the street authority has a duty to coordinate works and the undertakers have a duty to cooperate. That coordination only happens if someone tells the authority all the works are coming. A single meeting with the street works team, with a plan showing every proposed opening, routinely saves months of sequential closures.

Ask each utility for its lead time in writing at the quotation stage, then build the longest one into the programme rather than the average. A construction traffic management plan that shows the connection works alongside the build traffic gives the highway officer the whole picture and makes discharge of the planning condition straightforward.

Charges and overrun penalties

Occupying the highway costs money and running late costs more. Authorities charge for permits, for scaffold and hoarding licences by area and duration, and for skips by week.

On top of that, section 74 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 allows a street authority to charge for works that occupy the highway for longer than the agreed period. Some authorities also operate lane rental schemes on their busiest routes, charging a daily rate for occupying traffic-sensitive streets at traffic-sensitive times. Those daily rates are the reason overnight and weekend working appears in tenders on main roads.

Charges are set by each authority and revised periodically, so check the current schedule on the relevant authority's website rather than relying on a figure from a previous job.

Sequencing consents against the build programme

Work backwards from the date the contractor wants to be on site.

Start with the longest lead item, which is normally the traffic regulation order or the section 278 agreement, because a section 278 needs a technical approval process, a bond and often a road safety audit before the agreement is signed. Then the utility connections. Then the permits and licences, which are quick but need insurance certificates and method statements that take their own time to assemble.

Pull the whole sequence into one programme line and review it monthly. The planning condition requiring a construction management plan is usually discharged in a fortnight, and a transport statement submitted with the application will already have set out the access arrangement, so those are rarely the constraint. The highway consents are.

Where the scheme involves new estate roads, the geometry and adoption questions in private drive geometry: gradients, widths and turning and shared surface streets and what highway officers want feed directly into what the highway authority will accept under a section 278 or section 38.

This is general guidance, not legal advice, so check the position with the highway authority or a qualified professional before relying on it.

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