Skip licensing

You must apply for a skip permit (skip licence) if you want to put a skip on a public road.

You need a licence for:

• skips
• hippobags and other skip bags

You don't need a skip licence if you're putting the skip entirely on private land.

You can't put a skip on the pavement.

You will need to find a skip hire company that has public liability insurance.

We don't recommend individual businesses but you can find listings of local skip hire companies at Yell.com: skip hire and oHire: skip hire.

Conditions

You may need to put safety lights and markings on or around the skip. This could include:

• reflective markings
• traffic cones
• night-time safety lamps
• the name and telephone number of the skip hire company

If you don't put up the required safety lights and markings, you could be fined up to £1,000.

Permission may be subject to additional conditions such as:

• siting of the skip
• skip dimensions
• care and disposal of skip contents
• skip removal

Licence fee

There's a fee of £45 for each whole or part period of 7 days – that is, for each whole or part week.

For example, 30 days is equal to 4 weeks and 2 days, which is rounded up to 5 weeks, so the fee to place a skip on the highway for 30 days would be 5x £45 = £225.

You should take care to calculate the correct fee for the full period applicable.

If you wish to keep the skip for longer than period stated on the original application, your skip company must apply to extend the permit on your behalf. The fee for the extension period is calculated the same way as the application fee.

All licence fees must be paid at the time of application and are non-refundable.

Apply online

Your skip company must apply for a permit on your behalf – you must not apply as a private individual.

The form below can be used either to:

• apply for a new permit
• apply to extend an existing permit

Apply for a skip permit

Contact our Highways team if you need further advice.