One of the questions we are asked most often by homeowners in the town is how long a skip is actually allowed to stay put, especially when it has to go on the road. The answer depends entirely on whether the skip is on your own land or on a public street, and it is the street side that has the rules. Anyone arranging skip hire in Ormskirk for a project that runs longer than a few days should understand the timing before booking, and our Ormskirk skip hire team will walk you through it.
The licence period on a public street
If the skip sits on a public road, verge or footway, it needs a licence from Lancashire County Council as the highway authority. That licence is granted for a set period rather than open-ended, currently at thirty six pounds per month, and if your project is going to run longer than the period granted, the licence has to be renewed rather than simply left in place. We handle the application and any renewal as a registered carrier with the cover the licence requires, and we confirm the live fee and the notice period, around two working days, when we quote. The point worth taking away is that a road skip is on a clock, so the hire is best planned to match it.
On your own driveway the rules are different
A skip on your own driveway does not need a council licence, and there is no fixed limit set by the highway authority on how long it can stay. That said, common sense still applies. A heavy skip left for weeks on block paving or soft ground can mark the surface, and a skip that has been full and forgotten is just lost space, so we still encourage driveway customers to plan a sensible end date and have it collected once the job is done.
Planning the hire to match the work
The cheapest skip is the one that is sized and timed to the job. If you know a renovation will take three weeks, it is better to tell us that up front so the road licence covers the whole run, than to book a short period and scramble for a renewal halfway through. For a quick job a smaller skip on a shorter hire is plenty, and you can see how the sizes compare on our skip sizes page. A 4 tonne midi skip hire on a tidy two week hire covers a lot of domestic projects without paying for road time you will not use.
Talk to us about your timescale
If you are not sure how long your project will run, that is exactly the sort of thing to mention when you book, because we can build the hire and any licence around it. Call our Ormskirk team on 01704 779345 or use the contact page, tell us the job and whether the skip is on the drive or the road, and we will get the timing right.
