A street works licence, issued under Section 50 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, is the consent a person or organisation needs to place and then maintain their own apparatus, such as a water main or a duct, in a public highway when they have no statutory right to dig there. It is granted by the local street authority, which in most areas is the county or unitary council acting as highway authority. The licence is often called a Section 50 licence, after the part of the Act that creates it.
For a developer, a self-lay water provider, or anyone laying a private network, the Section 50 licence is the gate between the plan and the dig. It is also widely misunderstood. It is not the same as a Section 171 licence, it is not a street works permit, and it carries an obligation that catches people out: the moment it is granted, you are treated as a street works undertaker, with the same reinstatement liability as a water company. This guide explains what the licence covers, who needs one, how to apply, what it costs, and what you take on when you hold it.
What a street works licence is
A street works licence permits the holder to place or retain apparatus in the street, and afterwards to inspect, maintain, adjust, repair, alter, renew, reposition or remove it. To do those things, it also allows the works needed in the highway itself, including breaking open the carriageway or footway and tunnelling or boring beneath it. The power to grant the licence sits with the street authority under Section 50 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 (NRSWA).
Apparatus is defined broadly in the Act. It covers pipes, cables and ducts, along with the chambers and structures that house them or give access to them. In water and utility civils, that means a new water main or service connection, a private water supply running under an adopted road, or the ducting and chambers laid for a telecoms or fibre network. The common thread is that the apparatus belongs to someone who is not a statutory undertaker, and it has to go into ground the public uses.
Who needs a street works licence, and who does not
You need a street works licence if you want to put apparatus into a public highway and you do not hold statutory rights to open that highway. That is the dividing line. Water companies, gas and electricity networks, and licensed telecoms operators are statutory undertakers: Parliament has given them the right to work in the street, subject to the rest of NRSWA, so they do not apply for a Section 50 licence. Everyone else does.
In practice that means private developers, landowners, and the contractors acting for them, and it very often means self-lay water work. When a self-lay provider installs the water mains for a new development before they are adopted by the incumbent water company, that pipework is not yet the water company’s apparatus, and the provider is not a statutory undertaker for it. A Section 50 licence is what allows it to be laid in the public highway. The same is true for a private water connection crossing an adopted road, or a privately owned network being placed under the footway.
The exemption for statutory undertakers is the source of a lot of confusion, because it makes the licence feel like a formality the big utilities have somehow sidestepped. They have not sidestepped anything. They simply work under a different part of the same Act. For anyone outside that category, the licence is not optional, and starting work without one is an offence.
Section 50, Section 171 and street works permits are not the same thing
Three different consents get lumped together under the loose heading of a street works licence, and applying for the wrong one wastes time. The distinction comes down to what you are doing and where your rights come from.
One more thing the licence is not: it is not the qualification your team needs to dig. The NRSWA accreditation cards your operatives and supervisor hold are about individual competence on site. The Section 50 licence is the legal consent for the works. You need both, and they are separate.
What the licence makes you: a street works undertaker
The most important, and least explained, feature of a Section 50 licence is what it does to your legal status. Once the street authority grants it, the licence holder is treated as a street works undertaker for the purposes of Part 3 of NRSWA. That is not just a label. It is the switch that brings the full weight of the street works regime down on the job, and it is set out in the DfT’s good practice guide for authorities issuing Section 50 licences.
As an undertaker, you take on the notice requirements before and during the works, the traffic management duties under the Traffic Management Act 2004, and the signing, lighting and guarding rules in the Safety at Street Works and Road Works code, the document the trade calls the Red Book. You must use accredited operatives and a qualified supervisor. And when the works are done, you carry the reinstatement obligation: putting the highway back to the national specification, and standing behind it for the guarantee period.
That last point is the one that catches developers out. The liability sits with the licence holder, not with the contractor on site, and it cannot be delegated away by contract. If the reinstatement fails within the guarantee period, the authority looks to the licence holder. We cover what good reinstatement actually involves, and the guarantee periods that apply, in our guide to the reinstatement specification (SROH).
How to apply for a street works licence
Applying is straightforward once you know who applies and in what order. Authorities run their own forms and portals, but the shape is consistent.
The first thing to get right is who applies. The licence is granted to the owner of the apparatus, or the owner of the land it serves, not to the contractor engaged to install it. Most authorities will not issue a Section 50 licence to a third party brought in to do the works on the owner’s behalf. What they expect instead is for the owner to appoint a contractor with the right NRSWA accreditation to prepare the application and carry out the works. Hertfordshire County Council, for one, advises exactly that on its own application form.
- Confirm ownership, and appoint an accredited contractor to handle the application and the works.
- Submit the application to the street authority with a plan showing the apparatus and its route, proof of public liability insurance, and the qualifications of the supervisor and operatives.
- Wait for the signed licence. You cannot lawfully start until it has been issued.
- Book the road space and arrange traffic management separately, then carry out the works within the dates on the licence.
A common misunderstanding is that the licence is permission to occupy the road. It is not. The Section 50 licence authorises the works; the road space itself is booked and confirmed separately, and on traffic-sensitive or busy streets that booking can be the longer pole in the tent. Treat the licence and the road space as two approvals, not one.
What the authority will require
The licence conditions are broadly the same across authorities, because they flow from the Act rather than from local policy. Expect to provide public liability insurance, commonly to a minimum of five million pounds, though some authorities require more: Hertfordshire, for instance, asks for ten million. Expect to show that the people doing the work hold current NRSWA accreditation: a qualified supervisor and qualified operatives, with the reinstatement competencies, both hot lay and cold lay, that the job needs. And expect to submit a plan of the works and, where relevant, a traffic management plan.
These competence requirements are not the authority being awkward. They come from the qualifications regulations made under NRSWA, and they are the reason the owner of the apparatus needs an accredited contractor in the first place. The cards on site and the insurance behind the works are what make the licence conditions deliverable.
How much notice, and how long it lasts
There is no single national notice period for a Section 50 licence, which is where a lot of online advice gets it wrong. The notice you must give is set under the NRSWA notice regime and the relevant code of practice, and authorities apply it differently. The gov.uk guidance puts the minimum at seven working days; National Highways, for the strategic road network, asks for at least ten days’ advance notice. Where the work needs a road closure or a temporary traffic order, expect to allow considerably longer.
You cannot start the works until the signed licence is in hand, and once issued, many authorities require the work to begin within a set window, often three months. The licence itself covers the works described in it; it is not an open-ended permission to keep returning to the highway. Plan the programme around the longest lead time, which is usually the road space and any traffic management, not the licence application itself.
What a street works licence costs
There is no national price for a Section 50 licence. Each authority sets its own fee under Schedule 3 of NRSWA, to cover granting and administering the licence rather than the works themselves, and the DfT’s good practice guide put the average at around £500 in 2023, with some authorities charging closer to £400 for a minor job and £2,500 for a major one. The figures below are examples from authorities in and around Hertfordshire and north London at the time of writing, in June 2026. Fees are reviewed, so always check the current schedule for the authority you are working in.
Example Section 50 fees, correct as of June 2026
| Authority | What the fee covers | Amount |
|---|---|---|
| Hertfordshire | Per licence | £891 |
| Barnet | Per licence | around £505 |
| Havering | Minor works, up to 3 days | £1,195 |
What moves the fee is mostly the duration and scale of the works, and whether the highway has to be closed. A short connection in a quiet residential road sits at the bottom of the range; longer works on a busy or traffic-sensitive route, especially anything needing a closure, sit at the top. The fee is also separate from the cost of the works themselves, and from any overrun charges if the job runs past its agreed dates.
What you must do afterwards: reinstatement and the guarantee
Reinstatement is the part of the licence that lives on after the dig is filled in. Because the licence holder is a street works undertaker, the highway must be put back to the national reinstatement specification, the SROH, and not simply patched. An interim reinstatement is allowed while materials settle, but it has to be made permanent within six months.
The reinstatement then carries a guarantee period, during which the authority can require the licence holder to put right any failure: typically two years, and three years for the deeper openings over 1.5 metres. Miss the agreed dates and the authority can levy overrun charges under Section 74 of the Act. The detail of how openings are reinstated, and what the specification actually demands, is set out in our guide to the SROH reinstatement specification.
For most of the water work that needs a Section 50 licence, the licence is one step inside a larger job: laying the mains and connections for a development and getting them adopted. That is the territory of self-lay water services, where the consent, the dig and the reinstatement all have to line up. Getting the licence right at the start is what keeps the rest of the programme on track.
Questions on street works licences
A street works licence is the consent that lets a person or organisation place and maintain their own apparatus, such as a water pipe, cable or duct, in a public highway when they are not a statutory undertaker. It is granted by the local street authority under Section 50 of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, which is why it is often called a Section 50 licence.
Section 50 of the Act gives the street authority the power to license a person to place or retain apparatus in the street, and then to inspect, maintain, repair, alter, renew, reposition or remove it. Once the licence is granted, the holder is treated as a street works undertaker and takes on the notice, traffic management and reinstatement duties that go with that status.
There is no national fee. Each highway authority sets its own charge to cover processing and administering the licence, and most scale it by the length of the works. As a guide, examples in 2026 range from a few hundred pounds for a short connection to over a thousand pounds for longer works, with extra charges possible if the job overruns. Always check the current fee for the authority you are working in.
Yes. Digging up or altering a footpath or pavement counts as street works, and anyone who is not a statutory undertaker needs a Section 50 licence to do it. The footway is part of the public highway, so the same rules apply as for the carriageway, including notice to the authority, accredited operatives, and reinstatement to specification afterwards.
