Home/Section 278 design
Section 278 design & approvalThe design, the approval, and everything in between.
I take your highway works from a first sketch through to a design the authority has formally approved and your solicitor can attach to the agreement, and I deal with the authority throughout, so you do not have to.
What a Section 278 is, without the jargon
The road outside your site is not yours. It belongs to the highway authority, normally the county or unitary council, and they are responsible for its safety and upkeep.
If your development needs that road altered, Section 278 of the Highways Act 1980 is the mechanism that allows it. In simple terms, it is a legal agreement in which you pay for and carry out works to the public highway, and the authority agrees to accept them once complete.
The agreement itself is drafted by solicitors. But it cannot be signed until the authority is satisfied that the design is safe, buildable and meets their standards. Reaching that point is called technical approval, and it is the stage where schemes most often lose months.
Where it usually goes wrong: a design is drawn up without knowing what that particular authority expects. It is submitted, comes back with comments, is amended, and comes back again. Each round costs weeks, and the planning programme absorbs every one of them.
The cheapest time to involve an engineer is before you submit
A planner assesses whether your proposal is acceptable in principle. Whether the highway element can actually be built, to the standards the authority will hold you to, is a different question and a different profession.
An hour or two of engineering input before the planning submission is often the cheapest money spent on a scheme. It confirms that what you are asking permission for can genuinely be delivered.
The expensive version
Permission is granted on a layout that will not work on the ground. The Section 278 design then cannot match what was approved, so it goes back to the authority, and sometimes back through planning as well. Every one of those rounds costs weeks, and none of them were necessary.
Signs you need a Section 278
- Your planning permission carries a condition about highway works or access
- You need a new or altered vehicle access onto a public road
- The authority has asked for a junction, crossing, footway or traffic signals
- You have been asked for a technical approval submission and are not sure what that means
- A design has already been produced and the authority keeps rejecting it
Not certain whether this applies to you? A short conversation will usually settle it, and there is no charge for that.
How your scheme reaches technical approval
Six stages. You have the same engineer at every one of them, and you will always know which stage you are at.
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Feasibility and concept
We establish what the development genuinely requires and what this authority is likely to accept, before you pay to detail something that was never going to be approved.
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Survey and constraints
Levels, street lighting, statutory apparatus, trees, accesses and land ownership all shape what is possible. I survey what I can myself, and arrange specialist surveys only where they are genuinely needed.
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Detailed design
Full general arrangement drawings, construction and kerb details, signing and lining, visibility splays and street lighting requirements, drawn to the authority's own specification and to national standards. This is the package the authority reviews.
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Road safety audit and amendment
I arrange the independent safety audit and brief the auditor, then prepare the designer's response to every point raised, amending the design where warranted and setting out the reasoning where not.
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Submission and technical approval
I act as your technical representative from submission onwards, answering queries engineer to engineer and negotiating the points that are genuinely negotiable. This is where most of the time is saved.
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Handover for the legal agreement
Approved drawings, bills of quantity and the information your solicitor needs are packaged for the Section 278 agreement itself. Pre-construction information, health and safety documentation and the final record set are handed over ready for construction.
The documents and drawings produced
Exactly which of these your scheme needs depends on its scale and the authority involved. This is agreed and priced before any work starts, so there are no surprises later.
Drawings
- General arrangement plans
- 2D contour plans and cross-sections
- Construction and kerb detail drawings
- Signing and road marking layouts
- Visibility splays and swept path assessments
- Street lighting and statutory undertaker requirements
- Consultation plans
Documents
- Technical approval submission package
- Road safety audit arranged on your behalf, and the designer's response to it
- Pre-Construction Information (CDM 2015)
- Equality Impact Assessment where required
- Health and safety design risk documentation
- Bills of quantity
- All liaison with the highway authority throughout, up to the point of legal agreement
Third-party costs are paid by you, directly to the provider. Road safety audits, specialist surveys and the highway authority's own fees sit outside my fee. I identify what is genuinely needed, obtain quotes and set it up for you, but the appointment and the invoice are between you and them. Nothing is marked up, and you can see exactly what you are paying for.
Designed to be approved first time
Highway design is governed by a stack of national standards, and then modified again by every authority's own local requirements. Knowing both is what keeps a submission from bouncing.
- TSRGD 2016
- DMRB
- Traffic Signs Manual
- Manual for Streets
- MCHW
- CDM 2015
- Local authority standards
Also available on the same scheme
- Design audit. Independent review of a design produced by someone else, useful when a submission keeps being rejected and nobody can say why.
- Authority representation. Attending meetings as the engineer who can answer technical questions on the spot.
- CDM Principal Designer. Full statutory duties under CDM 2015, considered from the first concept sketch.
- Appeals and negotiation. Technical advocacy where a scheme has stalled, including appeal liaison.
Things clients usually ask first
How long does technical approval take?
It varies by authority and by how complex the works are, but the biggest single factor is how many rounds of comments the design goes through. A submission that anticipates the authority's requirements can be approved in a fraction of the time one that does not. That is the whole point of getting the design right before it is submitted rather than after.
Do I need a Section 278 as well as planning permission?
Usually, yes. Planning permission establishes that your development is acceptable in principle. It does not give you any right to alter the public highway. Where highway works are needed, they are dealt with separately under Section 278, and planning conditions frequently require the agreement to be in place before the development can be occupied or in some cases even started.
Can you take over a scheme that has already been started by someone else?
Yes, and it is a common request. I will review what exists, tell you plainly whether it can be salvaged or is better restarted, and give you the reasoning either way before you commit to anything further.
Do you work outside Kent?
Yes, and most of my work is. Design, documentation and liaison with the highway authority are all handled remotely as a matter of course, and schemes are delivered successfully that way at locations right across the UK.
Where a scheme needs someone there in person, such as site visits, surveying or meetings held at the authority's offices, I cover sites in Kent. Two decades working within and alongside Kent authorities also means particularly detailed knowledge of local requirements in the South East.
How is the work priced?
Most Section 278 work is quoted as a fixed price against an agreed scope, so you know the cost before committing. Where the scope genuinely cannot be pinned down at the outset, an hourly or daily rate is often the fairer arrangement. Both are explained on the ways of working page.
What if I only need advice, not a full design?
That is entirely reasonable and is something I am happy to do. Engagements start at a single hour, enough to review a planning condition, sanity-check a proposal, or talk through what a scheme is likely to involve before you decide how to proceed.
Send me what you have
A site plan, a planning condition, or a description of the problem is enough to start. I will tell you what is involved, what it is likely to cost, and whether you actually need it.