Designated Routes

The specified routes construction vehicles must use to and from the site. The guidance states designated routes form a key part of the CLP, and splits them into strategic access routes and local access routes. Both have to be recorded on a map and communicated to drivers.

The long-haul part of the journey. The guidance says that unless materials come from local suppliers, goods vehicles will travel to site from other locations, and such journeys should be restricted, unless otherwise advised, to the Strategic Road Network. The SRN is described as best suited to this type of heavy traffic.

Two stated reasons: use of strategic routes is less likely to create congestion, and it helps minimise the impact on local air quality. Motorways and trunk roads are built for heavy vehicles in a way local distributor roads are not.

The final part of the journey. The guidance says the impact on local access roads may be essential for the last stages of the journey to site, and that one or more specific access routes on the local distributor road network should be specified as compulsory. You must also show how these link to the strategic road network.

The guidance says it should be specified as compulsory, not suggested. That wording matters: a CLP that offers drivers a preferred route rather than a required one is weaker, and harder to enforce when a resident complains about a lorry on the wrong street.

The planning authority, on a site-specific basis. The guidance lists what that agreement takes into account: transport assessment results, local capacity constraints, safety considerations, potential for multi-drop deliveries where neighbouring sites collaborate, and likely site access and unloading points.

Yes, the guidance requires it explicitly. A routing plan that shows the last half mile but not how a lorry reaches it from the motorway leaves the reviewer to guess, and guessing is what generates objections.

The guidance says the route should avoid areas that may increase traffic risk to vulnerable road users, and lists: residential areas, schools, hospitals, health centres, community centres, sports facilities, public transport infrastructure, Cycle Super Highways and bus stops.

The guidance addresses this: if avoidance is not possible, the area in question must be clearly marked on the map and extra care taken when driving. So the answer is not to hide it. Marking it and stating the additional control is the compliant approach and reads far better than a map that quietly omits the school.

Because construction vehicles and cyclists in the same space is one of the highest-consequence conflicts in urban construction logistics. The guidance groups them with schools and hospitals as places where routing increases risk to vulnerable road users.

The guidance says strategic access routes must be recorded clearly on a map and communicated to drivers and contractors using the CLP and the handbooks. That is the Drivers' handbook and the Contractors' handbook, both defined as components of a CLP.

A route allowing a vehicle that has overshot or been turned away to return without an unplanned manoeuvre on a residential street. The guidance refers to local area routing including turn back routes. Without one, drivers improvise, and improvised reversing is where most incidents happen.

The guidance says medium impact sites require a single plan showing the local area routing. Higher impact sites are expected to provide more. A single clear plan is often better than several partial ones.

The guidance mentions potential for multi-drop deliveries where neighbouring sites collaborate as one of the factors considered when agreeing local access routes. Collaboration is also a planned measure category in its own right. On a dense regeneration area this is one of the largest available reductions in total movements.

Routing plans show intent. Swept path analysis shows feasibility, particularly at the junctions where the designated route meets the site access and at any tight turn on the compulsory local route. A route that looks fine on a plan and fails on a swept path check is a problem discovered late.

It becomes a compliance and enforcement issue, and if the route is secured by condition, potentially a breach. This is exactly why the guidance ties routing to the Drivers' handbook and to procurement: the route has to reach the person holding the steering wheel.

The routing measures are aimed at goods vehicles, but staff travel is a separate planned measure category. On larger sites worker trips can outnumber delivery trips, so a CLP that routes lorries carefully and ignores several hundred daily car journeys has missed most of its own impact.

The guidance gives minimising impact on local air quality as one of the two stated reasons for preferring strategic routes. Where an authority has an Air Quality Management Area, expect routing and vehicle emission standards to be examined more closely.