How Much Does a Scaffold Licence Cost?

A council licence for four weeks of scaffolding on the pavement costs £77 to £1,055.02 depending on where you live, with a median of £251. Every highway authority sets its own fee and prices it its own way. We read the published fee for 68 UK authorities on their own websites, covering 180 council areas. The full table is below, and every figure links to the page it came from.

Do you need a scaffold licence?

Only if any part of the scaffold stands on, or hangs over, the pavement or the road. Scaffolding put up entirely on your own driveway or garden needs no licence. In England and Wales this is a licence under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980; Scottish councils issue it as a road occupation permit, and in Northern Ireland it comes from the Department for Infrastructure rather than the council.

In practice your scaffolder applies for it, not you, and the fee should appear as its own line on their quote. If a quote for scaffolding at the front of a terraced house has no licence line, ask whether it is included. Putting up scaffolding on the highway without one can bring a retrospective charge or enforcement action from the council.

Why one number does not exist

Authorities charge per week, per calendar month, for a fixed first period, or as an application fee plus a period fee, and a few price by the size of the scaffold. Of the authorities we confirmed, 11 charge per week, 3 per month, 33 a single fee for a set period, and 13 an application fee plus a period fee. That is why the table answers one question for every authority rather than quoting its own tariff: what four weeks of an ordinary house-front scaffold costs, application fee included. Refundable deposits are left out of that figure, and 4 of the authorities in the table ask for one.

What each authority charges

Fees were read from each authority's own website and independently re-checked against the live page. In most of England outside the big cities the licence comes from the county council, so find your town in the areas column. Where an authority is not listed, we could not confirm a current figure and would rather show nothing than guess.

The cheapest and the most expensive

Cheapest: Sheffield (£77), Fife (£80), Salford (£88), Bristol (£90), Northumberland (£95).

Most expensive: Redbridge (£1,055.02), Lambeth (£765), Sefton (£684), Cheshire East (£674), Waltham Forest (£660). The same scaffold on the same kind of street costs 14x as much to license in one place as another.

If your job overruns, most authorities charge again for the extra time, so a roof that takes six weeks instead of four costs more to license too. The authority's own page, linked in the table, gives the extension rate.

Get scaffolding quoted

The licence is a small part of the bill: scaffolding for a typical house costs far more than the permit to put it on the pavement. Compare a few quotes, and check each one says whether the licence is included.