Plenty of homes in the middle of Ormskirk have no driveway at all. The terraced streets that fan out around the town centre put front doors straight onto the pavement, which means any skip has to stand on the road itself. That is entirely doable, thousands of skips sit legally on Lancashire roads every year, but it involves a permit, some notice and a bit of local knowledge about which streets work and which need a rethink. As the local arm of Martlands, we arrange this for Ormskirk skip hire customers constantly, and this is how the process actually runs.
Who issues the permit for an Ormskirk street
The first thing to know is which council is involved, because it catches people out. West Lancashire Borough Council runs many local services in the town, but it does not issue skip permits. Roads, pavements and verges in Ormskirk are the responsibility of Lancashire County Council as highway authority, and the permit framework sits under Part IX of the Highways Act 1980. The application is made by the skip company rather than the householder, and the company has to be registered with the county council and carry public liability insurance of at least five million pounds. We hold that registration and cover, so for you the permit is simply a line in the booking conversation rather than a form-filling exercise.
What the permit costs and how much notice it needs
As things stand the county council charges thirty six pounds for a licence covering up to a month on the highway, and it expects around two working days between application and delivery. In practice that means a road-placed skip in Ormskirk should be booked early in the week before you want it, not the night before. The fee and timescale do change from time to time, so we confirm the current figures when you book. If your project overruns, the licence can be extended, and telling us a few days before expiry is far smoother than letting it lapse with the skip still sitting outside, since an unlicensed skip on the highway exposes everyone involved.
Which town centre streets suit a skip and which do not
This is where local experience earns its keep. The older streets off Aughton Street, Burscough Street and Moor Street vary enormously. Some have wide carriageways and unrestricted kerbs where a skip sits without troubling anyone. Others carry residents’ parking, double yellows, or serve as bus and delivery routes where an obstruction on the carriageway is simply not workable. A skip can never sit across a dropped kerb, block a junction sight line or force pedestrians off the pavement. Where your own street is a poor candidate, the answer is sometimes placing the skip around the corner on a wider side road, sometimes a smaller skip that tucks tighter to the kerb, and sometimes a wait-and-load service where the wagon stands while you fill it and takes the waste straight away. When you ring, tell us the street and we will very likely know it already.
Lights, cones and keeping the skip legal overnight
A skip on the highway has conditions attached beyond the fee. It must show the owner’s name and contact details, carry reflective markings, and be lit at night, with traffic cones set out on the approach side. We deliver road-placed skips with lamps and cones and position everything correctly, but the lamps do need to keep working through the hire, so give us a call if one is knocked out or goes missing. Market days bring extra foot traffic through the town centre on Thursdays and Saturdays, and a well-marked skip matters even more when the pavements are busy.
Sizing a skip for a terraced street job
Road placement changes the sizing conversation. On a narrow street the skip needs to hug the kerb line without pinching the running lane, which usually points to the 4 tonne midi skip option rather than anything larger. It suits the renovation and clear out jobs these houses generate, and its smaller footprint keeps neighbours and passing traffic happy. Where a bigger job needs more capacity, two midi skips in sequence often beats one large skip on a constrained street. You can compare every footprint on our skip sizes overview before deciding.
Loading a skip that sits on a public road
A road skip is visible to the whole street, and that brings two practical points. Load it promptly, because an open skip in a town centre attracts other people’s waste, and unknown additions are your problem at collection. And keep the load level with the rim, since our wagon cannot lawfully carry an overfilled skip along Ormskirk’s streets. If you expect the job to produce more than the skip will take, tell us and we will schedule an exchange partway through rather than leaving you tempted to stack high.
Let us handle the paperwork for your Ormskirk skip
None of this should put anyone off. The permit system exists to keep the town’s streets safe, and with a local firm handling it the whole thing runs in the background. Ring us on 01704 779345 with your street name and the job you are planning, or send the details through our contact page, and we will sort the licence, the lights and the delivery while you get on with the project.
