HAUC, the Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee, is the joint body of highway authorities and utilities that develops the codes of practice behind street works in the UK, including the specification for how a road must be reinstated after it has been dug up. It does not issue those codes as law, and it does not enforce them on site.
That distinction is where a lot of confusion starts. The codes are given legal force by the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, they are issued by the Secretary of State, and it is the local street authority that inspects the work and enforces compliance. HAUC sits behind all of that as the body that develops and maintains the standards, not as a regulator. For anyone reinstating a highway opening, what matters is knowing which standards apply, which of them are law, and how an authority checks the work and charges for it. This guide covers what HAUC is, the family of codes it maintains, and how reinstatement compliance is actually enforced. Reinstatement to those standards is the core of McFadden’s reinstatement works, from backfill and sub-base through to the final surface course.
What HAUC is
HAUC was set up in 1986 by the local highway authorities and the utilities to help the Secretary of State frame new street works legislation. It went on to play a significant part in drawing up the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (NRSWA) and the Traffic Management Act 2004, along with their regulations and associated codes of practice. It works with the UK and devolved governments, and it represents local authorities, the four main utility sectors and their contractors. You can read more on the HAUC(UK) about page.
Two sides sit under the HAUC banner. The Joint Authorities Group, JAG(UK), represents the highway authority side. Street Works UK, formerly the National Joint Utilities Group, represents the utility side. Beneath the national committee, regional committees such as London HAUC and West Midlands HAUC give local authorities and utilities a forum to agree how the rules are applied in their area. HAUC also runs an app that puts the safety code and site checklists in an operative’s pocket. What HAUC is not, anywhere in that structure, is the body that polices the work. That job sits with the street authority.
Who sets the standards, who issues them, and who enforces them
Three different bodies do three different jobs, and keeping them apart is the key to understanding how the system works. HAUC develops and maintains the technical standards. The Secretary of State issues them as statutory codes of practice under NRSWA, which is what gives them legal force. The local street authority, the council acting as highway authority, then inspects the work and enforces compliance. The codes are not HAUC’s own house rules, and a contractor does not answer to HAUC for a failed reinstatement.
This matters in practice because it tells you where the duty comes from and who you answer to. The legal obligation to reinstate to standard comes from the Act, not from a HAUC document, and the body that can require you to dig a failing reinstatement up and redo it is the street authority. AI tools and general guidance often say, loosely, that HAUC issues or polices the codes. It does neither, and the difference is not academic when you are working out who can charge you and on what authority.
The HAUC codes of practice, and which ones are law
A contractor working in the highway is held to several codes at once, and they do not all carry the same weight. Some are statutory, which means breaking them is a breach of an undertaker’s legal duties, and in the case of safety, a criminal offence. Others are voluntary good practice. Knowing which is which tells you what an authority can actually enforce.
The main street works codes and their status
| Code | What it covers | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways (SROH) | Materials, layers, compaction and workmanship for reinstating an opening | Statutory, under section 71 of NRSWA |
| Safety at Street Works and Road Works (the "Red Book") | Signing, lighting and guarding the works | Statutory, under section 65 of NRSWA |
| Code of Practice for Inspections | How authorities inspect works and reinstatements | Statutory inspection regime, under section 75 of NRSWA |
| Code of Practice for the Co-ordination of Street Works | Planning, noticing and coordinating works | Statutory, under sections 56 to 60 of NRSWA |
| HAUC(UK) and RAUC(S) Code of Conduct and good-practice notes | Collaboration and conduct between authorities and utilities | Voluntary, not law |
For the detail of what the reinstatement specification actually requires, the layers, the road categories, the compaction and the guarantee periods, we cover it in our guide to the SROH reinstatement specification. The point for this guide is simply where the SROH sits: it is the statutory reinstatement code, issued under section 71, and it is the document an inspector measures a reinstatement against.
How reinstatement compliance is enforced
Enforcement runs through the street authority’s inspection powers, not through HAUC. Under section 75 of NRSWA and the Code of Practice for Inspections, the authority inspects an undertaker’s works and reinstatements. Inspections happen at different stages, while the work is in progress, at the interim reinstatement, and after the permanent reinstatement is complete, and they can be sample-based across an undertaker’s work or targeted at a specific job.
The inspection regime in England is a performance-based one, and that is worth understanding because it links quality directly to cost. The Street Works (Inspection Fees) (England) Regulations 2022, in force since April 2023, set a fee of £50 for each chargeable inspection and tie inspection frequency to compliance: undertakers with poor records are inspected more often than those with good ones. The figure is set by regulations and reviewed from time to time, so check the current rate, but the principle is fixed. You can read the regulations on legislation.gov.uk.
Where a reinstatement fails, the authority uses its powers under section 72 to require it to be put right, at the undertaker’s cost, and a recharge can include the cost of the re-inspections. A reinstatement also carries a guarantee period during which the undertaker stays responsible for how it performs, two years for most openings and three for the deeper ones, with the detail set out in the SROH. Separately, if the works themselves run past their agreed time, the authority can levy overrun charges under section 74, which is a different matter from a defective reinstatement. Running through all of it is a simple principle: failing to follow a statutory code is treated as evidence that the undertaker has breached its legal duties, and for the safety code, non-compliance is a criminal offence in its own right.
What it means for a contractor
For the contractor on the ground, the regime turns into a few practical realities. The people doing the work have to be accredited: a qualified supervisor and qualified operatives under section 67, holding the reinstatement competencies the job needs. The codes are not paperwork to file and forget; they are the standard the inspection will judge the work against, so they have to be built into how the job is done, not bolted on afterwards.
The performance-based inspection regime also makes quality a commercial lever rather than just a compliance box. A contractor with a clean compliance record is inspected less often, which means lower inspection costs and fewer jobs reopened for remedial work, while a poor record pulls in more inspections and more recharges. Reinstating to a permanent standard at the first visit, wherever the road type allows it, is the cheapest way to work as well as the compliant one. This is the standard McFadden’s reinstatement teams work to across backfill, sub-base, binder and surface course, and the modular and ancillary details the specification also covers, so highway openings are handed back compliant rather than coming back as a defect.
Questions on HAUC and reinstatement standards
HAUC stands for the Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee. It is the joint body of highway authorities and utilities that develops the codes of practice behind UK street works, including the specification for reinstating a road after it has been opened. It works with the UK and devolved governments and is not itself a regulator.
No. HAUC develops and maintains the Specification for the Reinstatement of Openings in Highways, but the document is issued by the Secretary of State as a statutory code of practice under section 71 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991. That statutory backing, not HAUC itself, is what gives it legal force.
No. The Red Book is the safety code, Safety at Street Works and Road Works, which covers signing, lighting and guarding the works. The SROH is the reinstatement specification, which covers how the road is rebuilt afterwards. They are different documents covering different ground, and they are often confused with each other.
The street authority inspects under section 75 and the Code of Practice for Inspections, at the work-in-progress, interim and permanent stages. In England, the Street Works (Inspection Fees) (England) Regulations 2022 set a fee of £50 for each chargeable inspection (correct at the time of writing, in June 2026) and a performance-based system, where undertakers with poorer compliance are inspected more often.
The local street authority, the council acting as highway authority, not HAUC. HAUC develops the standards and the Secretary of State issues them under the Act, but it is the authority that inspects the work, identifies defects and enforces compliance.
