The Scottish road system and highways | Planning Ahead with CMS | Episode 26

In the second episode of our highways series with Nicola Insley and Erin Crawley give an overview of the legal landscape for roads in Scotland.

Follow #PlanningAheadwithCMS to catch the final episode in our #highways series covering stopping up orders and their impact on property rights.

Click the link below to access Episode 1 of our Highways series and to catch up on our other episodes: https://lnkd.in/eRre7ydr
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Welcome to planning ahead with CMS as part of our ongoing series on highways today we are turning our Focus north of the border to explore the legal landscape of roads in Scotland joining me to delve into the Scottish Road system is Erin a planning lawyer based in our Scottish team welcome Erin thanks

Nicola happy to be here now last week we talked about highways in England and the legal intricacies there to kick off today’s episode could you tell us a bit about how roads work in Scotland absolutely nla well firstly I should say that in Scotland we don’t have the

Concept of Highways just roads and they’re governed by the primarily by the road Scotland act 1984 so unlike the highways act 1980 in England the definition of a road under the Scottish Act is any way over which there’s a public right of passage so that includes footways foot paths cycle track tracks

And carriageways so it encompasses a broader range or wider scope than the English definition oh that’s really interesting so it’s much more inclusive in terms of what is considered a road and what does that mean in practice that’s a great question Nicola um it has far reaching implications and it means

That the creation maintenance Improvement closure and diversion of Scottish roads encompasses a larger variety of routs so how are New Roads created in Scotland they can be created by construction dedication prescription or statutory order um so the process of Designing and granting approval for new streets is subject to both planning and

Roads laws the 1984 act it serves as the kind of principal legal document for the creation of New Roads and section 21 of that act mandates that all New Roads constructed by anyone other than the roads Authority must obtain roads construction consent before any construction work can begin so that kind

Of makes it a two-te process so what what is in Ro construction conscent yeah so it’s a a formal approval process that ensures that the proposed construction meets specific standards and requirements and as you said in the past most local authorities only began the formal roads construction consent approval process um once planning

Permission had been granted or when the final layout of uh the road had been agreed upon so this is effectively as you said created a two-step approval process first get your plan permission and then obtain your roads construction consent and and when it comes to stopping up

Roads or diverting them is there a special process in place for that yeah so in Scotland the procedure to stop up or divert a road be that temporarily for works or permanently for a development is managed by the relevant local Authority or planning Authority um under

The powers granted by the 1984 act or the planning act 1997 um stopping up roads requires a legal order and known as the stopping up order and this process um re involves getting approval from the relevant Authority so are there ever any objections to stopping up roads yeah

There are room for public objections and in some cases a public inquiry um so where an order is made by local authorities or a planning Authority and there are unresolved objections the decision on confirmation of the order order then goes to the Scottish ministers um and that’s often following

A hearing or inquiry um however for drunk roads the power to stop up or divert a road lies solely with the ministers so it goes quite high up then in terms of the decision making process and let’s talk about trunk roads and motorways a bit more how are they

Regulated in Scotland yes so they’re managed by the Scottish ministers um the responsibility for managing them is typically delegated to transport Scotland and that’s the national transport agency in Scotland um the trunk no network stands as the single largest asset of the Scottish ministers um and ranges from the M8 which connects

Glasgo and Ed inra to rural areas or rural roads in rural areas and many more in between so I think there’s roughly 3,500 km of uh trunk roads and motorways across the country um and they carry 35% of all traffic in the country and 60% of heavy Goods Vehicles wow that is some

Undertaken um so it’s a very substantial Network and how are these roads maintained so transport Scotland usually contracts with um operating companies to ensure the maintenance and safety of Scottish trunk roads um so four Regional units manage uh these services and they have responsibility for carrying out um maintenance tasks which include

Infrastructure repairs vegetation control um drainage cleaning and weather related tasks any developers that need to carry out works in the Scottish trunk roads normally have to um lay with these operating companies in order to facilitate their development so that’s a lot to think about logistically um how does transport Scotland fit in overall

To Scotland’s transport strategy then so it plays a crucial role in implementing the Scottish government’s National transport strategy so that was introduced in 2020 and its goal is to foster a sustainable inclusive safe and accessible transport system for the well-being and prosperity of Scotland over the next 20 years that’s a nice

Story um thanks very much for that Erin it’s really clear the roads Scotland Encompass a really broad range and are governed by a distinct set of laws and procedures that wraps up our dive into Scottish roads for today um thank you for coming along thanks for having me

Nia absolutely no problem at all thank you and thanks to those who have tuned in remember if you have any questions or feedback please get in touch with our team and join us next time as we continue our exploration of highways [Applause]