Temporary traffic orders and construction access costs

Construction access is a consent exercise with its own statutory timetables, and the one that most often delays a start is the temporary traffic regulation order. A temporary traffic order for construction work is made by the highway authority under the Road Traffic Regulation Act 1984, has to be advertised, and on most authorities takes around three months from application to coming into force. The charge for making it is set locally and published, and it is the smallest part of the cost.

The larger costs are the traffic management design, the parking bay suspensions, and the programme consequence of applying too late.

Which works need an order

Not everything does, and the distinction saves money.

A full or partial road closure needs a temporary traffic regulation order under section 14 of the 1984 Act. So does a temporary one way working, a temporary speed limit, a temporary waiting restriction, or a prohibition of turns.

Short notice or urgent works can proceed under a temporary notice rather than a full order, but the notice route is limited to a short period and is intended for emergencies rather than for a planned development that failed to apply in time.

Works that only occupy the footway or verge, or that place materials or plant in the highway, go down a different route: a licence under the Highways Act 1980. Scaffolding, hoardings, skips, building materials deposited in the street and temporary excavation each have their own licence, and each carries a published charge and a notice period.

A new or widened vehicle crossing over a footway needs a separate approval and the works are carried out by or on behalf of the authority at your cost.

Where a utility connection involves opening the carriageway, the connection falls under the street works regime, with notices or permits depending on whether the authority operates a permit scheme. Our note on water and drainage connection costs on a small site covers the undertaker's side of that.

Lead times, and where they come from

The delay is in the publicity, not the decision.

An order has to be advertised in a local newspaper, notices posted on site, and in most cases a consultation period run with the emergency services, the bus operators and sometimes the parish council. Authorities publish their own lead times and most ask for somewhere between eight and sixteen weeks for a planned order. Three months is a safe planning assumption.

Two things lengthen those periods. A traffic sensitive street, where restrictions on when work may take place are tighter and coordination with other promoters is slower. And a lane rental scheme, operated by some authorities on their busiest routes, where daily charges apply for occupying the carriageway and the commercial pressure to work at night becomes substantial.

Parking bay suspensions

On an urban site this is often the largest recurring charge. Suspension of residents' bays, pay and display bays or loading bays is charged per bay per day, at rates the authority publishes, and on a city centre site the daily total mounts quickly over a long programme.

Three ways to control it.

Apply for the minimum number of bays for the minimum period, and stage the suspensions by construction phase rather than taking the whole frontage for the duration.

Work out whether a single suspended loading bay used with a managed delivery booking system does the job, instead of a continuous suspension for a compound.

Check whether the authority offers a longer term rate or an annual permit arrangement for construction sites, because several do and the saving against daily rates is material.

Budget it from the published schedule and the programme, bay by bay and week by week, rather than as a round allowance. This is the line that overruns most often on an urban scheme.

Traffic management design and approval

The order authorises the restriction. The traffic management plan shows how it will be implemented on the ground: signing, lining, barriers, pedestrian routes, crossing provision for people with mobility and visual impairments, and the diversion route for traffic.

It has to be prepared by someone competent in temporary traffic management to the standards the highway authority requires, and it has to be approved before the restriction can be used. Diversion routes are where approvals get refused, because a route that works on a map may take heavy goods vehicles past a school or under a low bridge.

Pedestrian provision is the second common refusal. Closing a footway without providing a signed, surfaced and accessible alternative is not acceptable, and a temporary walkway in the carriageway with its own protection is usually what is required.

Factor in the cost of the physical works: signs, barriers, temporary surfacing, and the operatives to install and maintain them. On a long closure that recurring cost exceeds the order fee many times over.

How it ties to the construction traffic plan

A construction traffic management plan is normally secured by a planning condition requiring approval before work starts. It covers routeing, vehicle numbers, hours of delivery, wheel washing, parking for operatives and site access arrangements.

Keep it consistent with what you will actually apply for. A plan approved on the basis of a two way access that later needs a road closure for six weeks has to be amended, and amending an approved plan means going back to the authority and waiting.

Two documents, two teams, one set of assumptions. The construction management plan covering the wider site logistics should use the same access arrangements, the same vehicle numbers and the same hours.

Working hours and out of hours consents

Noisy construction work is controlled separately by the environmental health team. Under the Control of Pollution Act 1974 you can apply for prior consent to a method and timetable of works, which gives certainty about hours and methods, and the authority can serve a notice imposing requirements where you have not.

That matters for construction access because a lane rental scheme or a traffic sensitive street may push the work into the night, while the noise regime may not permit night working at that location. Those two consents have to be reconciled before the programme is fixed, and reconciling them late is how a scheme ends up paying daily rental charges for daytime working it could have avoided.

Where night working is unavoidable, expect conditions on noise monitoring, a resident notification scheme and sometimes a cap on consecutive nights.

Programming the applications

Work backwards from the intended start on site and submit in this order.

1. Section 278 or adoption agreements, which are the longest items and should be started at or before the planning application.
2. The construction traffic management plan for condition discharge, allowing eight weeks.
3. The temporary traffic regulation order, allowing three months and longer on a traffic sensitive street.
4. Street works permits for utility connections, coordinated with the undertakers' own programmes.
5. Scaffolding, hoarding and skip licences, which are quick but easy to forget.
6. Parking bay suspensions, phase by phase, applied for a few weeks ahead of each phase.

The honest point to end on is that none of these consents is difficult. They are refused or delayed because they are applied for late, by a site team that inherited a programme written before anyone had read the authority's published lead times. Read them at the appraisal stage and the costs become predictable.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local highway authority, 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. Browse the full report index for the documents a major application needs.