Apply for pre-application advice before you develop on a road or highway

Overview of our pre-application advice

How we can help

We can give advice and guidance about highways and transport development to:

  • residents
  • developers
  • our Planning Team

Our responsibilities

As a responsible Highway Authority, we must ensure that any new development has:

  • traffic capacity
  • convenience to transport users as a whole
  • the minimum adverse impact on highway safety

How we review proposals

As part of our review process, we will:

  • review your planning proposals and technical work
  • decide if there are any transport concerns
  • visit your site

We'll then give you a formal recommendation, usually within 21 days (unless we need more information from you, or it requires more technical work).

When our Planning Team receive your planning application, they'll consider our recommendation.

The criteria we check

We check planning proposals against the following criteria, to ensure that the proposal:

  • complies with national, county and local transport policy
  • is compatible with road transport infrastructure
  • limits unacceptable road transport impacts
  • acknowledges any any developer-led improvements
  • has enough parking
  • promotes sustainable travel
  • is safe
  • has no likely highway encroachments
  • acknowledges if any road improvement lines are affected

Our recommendation

Our recommendation will be sent to you as one of 3 outcomes:

  • no objection without conditions
  • no objection with conditions
  • refusal

View an example of one of our 'no objections with conditions' recommendations (PDF, 73.5 KB)

View the recommendations we've sent on existing planning applications

You can view recommendations we've given on the local planning teams planning portals:

You can also search for Mineral and Waste planning applications.

Submit your application