Temporary works and the planning permission boundary

Planning permission authorises the development described in the application. It does not authorise the scaffold over the footway, the hoarding across the pavement, the crane jib swinging over the neighbour's roof, or the compound on the field down the road. Those come from separate regimes, mostly the Highways Act 1980 and private property rights, and the gap between the two is where construction programmes slip.

Most temporary works on the site itself need no separate planning permission, because Part 4 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 grants rights for buildings, plant and machinery required temporarily in connection with operations being carried out on that land or on adjoining land. The rights come with conditions: remove the works when the operations finish, and reinstate the land. That is a useful starting point, and it has sharp edges.

Which temporary works need consent and from whom

For every temporary item, the useful question is whose land or airspace it sits in, and for how long. Planning permission is often the wrong thing to be asking about.

Two of those catch people out. The Part 4 right covers land adjoining the site, so a compound on the field next door is usually fine while a compound two fields away is not. And the highway licences are discretionary: the authority can refuse, impose a fee, require a bond and specify pedestrian routing, so a programme that assumes a licence will be granted as a formality is optimistic.

Hoardings, scaffolding and highway licences

Highway licences are applied for separately from the planning application and usually cannot be obtained far in advance, because the authority wants dates. That creates a sequencing problem: the planning permission may be eighteen months old by the time you need the footway, and the traffic management conditions that made sense at determination may no longer match what the authority will accept.

Expect to provide a pedestrian management plan, a signed and lit diversion where the footway is fully closed, insurance to a specified limit, and a photographic condition survey of the surfaces you are taking over. Charges are set locally and usually run per square metre per week, which makes a hoarding line drawn generously an ongoing cost rather than a one-off fee.

Where a footway closure is unavoidable for a long period, raise it at pre-application. Highways officers who first see a full footway closure in a construction management plan submitted to discharge a condition tend to respond with a refusal and a request for redesign.

Crane oversail and third party rights

Airspace above a neighbouring property belongs to that neighbour at the heights a tower crane works in. Swinging a jib across it without consent is trespass, and an injunction is available. Planning permission is irrelevant to this: the authority has no power to authorise interference with private rights, and a condition requiring a crane will not help you.

The practical route is an oversailing licence negotiated with each affected owner, covering the period, the loads, insurance, out of hours restrictions and a fee. Start early, because an adjoining commercial owner has every incentive to negotiate slowly. Where the crane is tall or the site is near an aerodrome, aviation safeguarding adds a further step, and the Civil Aviation Authority's guidance on tall structures and crane notification is the reference point. Our separate piece on crane oversailing of third party land sets out what the licence normally contains.

Party wall matters sit in the same category of parallel regimes. Notices under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 are a civil process with their own timescales, nothing to do with the planning permission, and the awards can constrain working hours and methods in ways your programme has to absorb.

Temporary structures within the red line

Inside the application boundary, the Part 4 right covers most of what a contractor brings on site. The limits worth knowing are these. The works must be required temporarily in connection with the operations, so a sales suite that stays open after completion falls outside. A concrete batching plant for a long project may be substantial enough that the authority treats it as development in its own right. Site lighting that affects neighbours or a nearby roost is better dealt with by agreement than by argument. And where the site is in a conservation area or contains a listed building, the right does not override the need for listed building consent for anything that touches the historic fabric, including temporary fixings for scaffold ties.

Trees are the other common collision. Protective fencing to BS 5837:2012 has to go up before anything else arrives, and a compound positioned over a root protection area is the most frequent cause of an enforcement complaint on a tight site. We look at that in temporary works and tree protection on constrained sites.

Construction phase conditions that bite

The conditions attached to the permission are the ones that decide whether the temporary works you have planned are allowed. Four recur.

• A construction management plan or method statement, to be approved before work starts, which the authority will read against the licences you have actually obtained.
• Hours of work, often 08:00 to 18:00 on weekdays and shorter on Saturdays, with no Sunday working, which may conflict with a highway authority requirement to work at night.
• A construction traffic routeing and wheel washing requirement, sometimes with a condition survey of the route.
• A piling method statement where ground conditions, contamination or adjoining structures are in play.

Those first two can contradict each other outright. A highway authority wanting lane closures only between 20:00 and 06:00, and a planning condition forbidding work before 08:00, is a conflict the applicant has to resolve, usually by a variation of the hours condition for a defined phase. Draft a realistic Construction Management Plan rather than a generic one, and pair it with a Construction Traffic Management Plan that names the routes.

Demolition adds its own layer, including prior notification for the method of demolition and restoration, a refurbishment and demolition asbestos survey, and in a conservation area the need for permission for relevant demolition. The documents that go with it are set out in our note on demolition and asbestos surveys in the planning submission.

Site compounds on separate land

A compound on land that does not adjoin the site needs planning permission for the temporary change of use, and the application is a small one that nobody wants to make in month three of a programme. Two alternatives exist. The temporary use provisions in Part 4 allow a limited number of days of temporary use in a calendar year, which suits a short duration need rather than a two year contract, and the day limits have been amended more than once so the current figures need checking.

The better approach is to include the compound inside the red line of the main application from the start, described as a temporary construction compound with a reinstatement condition. It costs nothing extra at that stage. Retrofitting it later means a fresh application, a consultation period and a determination that may land after you needed the land.

Sequencing the consents

Order the work backwards from the first day on site.

1. Confirm what the permission conditions require to be approved before work starts, and submit those discharge applications early, because eight weeks is the normal determination period and some authorities take longer.
2. Start oversailing and party wall negotiations with adjoining owners, which are the longest lead items because they depend on someone else's goodwill.
3. Apply for highway licences once dates are firm, allowing for the authority's stated turnaround plus a contingency.
4. Serve any section 61 application for prior consent on noise if the works are near sensitive receptors, which buys certainty against a later abatement notice.
5. Erect tree protection and install the site boundary, then mobilise.

Getting that order wrong is the most common reason a scheme with a valid permission still cannot start. Enter the postcode on PlanScope to see which construction phase documents your authority is likely to ask for alongside the application.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority, your 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.