Plant on a Sydney street: which council permit?

Six councils, six pages, side by side

Each row follows one council’s own page to the permit it names. Cumberland City Council’s page asks for an approval or permit, under the Local Government Act 1993 or the Roads Act 1993, or both, from anyone about to work on a road, a footpath or in a carpark, or to carry out certain activities there. City of Sydney requires approval where a footpath, a cycleway or a roadway is to be temporarily closed or partly obstructed during development, or while works are under way.

For six Sydney councils: the permit its page names for plant on the public way, the ground it covers, and the source
Council	The permit	What it covers	Source
City of Sydney	Approval for minor construction work that takes up part of the public way.	A footpath, a cycleway or a roadway being closed, fully or in part, while development or works activity is under way.	City of Sydney: Get approval to use the public way for minor construction works
Cumberland City Council	A Standing Plant Permit, and a Road, Footpath and Carpark Occupancy Permit for taking up part of a road, a footpath or a public carpark.	Placing and operating cranes and concrete pumps, or mobile plant, on roads the council manages. The occupancy permit is generally available only for daily occupation, and a road opening permit covers excavation inside a roadway, a footpath, a reserve or another public place.	Cumberland City Council: Works within roads and footpaths
Hornsby Shire Council	Council approval to place mobile cranes and plant machinery on public ground.	A footpath, a nature strip, a road shoulder, a roadway or an area related to a road. A road opening permit allows digging into the council’s own assets, a roadway, a footpath or a nature strip among them, and the applicant pays to restore the public asset.	Hornsby Shire Council: Apply for a permit
North Sydney Council	A road and footpath occupancy permit.	Work on a council footpath or road by a business or an individual: excavation and concrete pours, crane work, deliveries of material, skip bins, use of a footpath, road occupation or closures, and work out of hours.	North Sydney Council: Apply for a permit to occupy a road and/or footpath
Liverpool City Council	Road occupancy permits.	Anything that interferes with normal traffic flow, affects pedestrian safety, or takes up part of the public road space. Lanes, footpaths and nature strips are among the places named, and the council’s page says managing safety and congestion is mandatory.	Liverpool City Council: Road Occupancy Permits
Campbelltown City Council	Road occupancy and work zone permits.	Work on a roadway, a footpath, a parking lane, a nature strip or another public space, which may need the council’s approval before it starts. The council asks for the site plan, the traffic management documents and an insurance certificate.	Campbelltown City Council: Road Occupancy

City of Sydney’s page reaches smaller cases too: other temporary works activity includes the placement of items such as mobile scaffolding on a footpath or roadway, barricades for a suspended scaffold or a swinging stage where hoisting activity does not cover them, and temporary vehicle driveways or laybacks, or other works in the public place.

On private property, and on the road

Hornsby Shire Council’s page says mobile cranes or plants on private property need no application and no fee, while the same machines on public ground need the council’s approval. That approval, the page says, includes any activity hoisting goods over a pedestrian area, or a concrete pour. The public side is the ground the six pages keep naming: a footpath, a nature strip, a lane or a roadway. Hornsby’s page also says an application for a temporary road or footpath closure should attach a copy of a Road Occupancy Licence approval from Transport for NSW’s Traffic Management Centre, if one is required.

Bringing the machine is its own small operation. Cumberland City Council’s Works Zone Permit covers a signposted parking area put up beside a building site, so that work vehicles and deliveries have a place to stop, and the same page notes that a works zone allows parking only under the Australian Road Rules, with a Standing Plant Permit as a separate application where it applies.

Where a lane or a footpath is given up, plans come with it. City of Sydney asks for a traffic and pedestrian control plan prepared by the holder of a training card issued by SafeWork NSW, drawn to AS 1742.3, where a diversion runs along a footpath. Hornsby Shire Council says a traffic guidance scheme is required, in line with AS 1742.3, for a temporary closure of a road or footpath, and that its application cannot be processed without one. SafeWork NSW’s page on earthmoving plant gives the reason these plans exist at all: the separation of workers from mobile plant and vehicles sits inside an employer’s wider duty of care for a safe workplace or construction site.

What a permit conditions, and what follows without one

North Sydney Council’s page sets the shape of the deal: a permit allows the approved works only on the date, at the time and in the place it nominates, and the work must not start before a valid permit has been issued. Campbelltown City Council asks its holder to follow every condition, use the traffic controls the approval sets, keep access safe, protect the council’s assets, and stay inside the approved hours and dates.

What can follow without a permit is on North Sydney’s page too: a permit that was never obtained or never complied with may bring fines, the cancellation of the permit or other action under the Local Government Act 1993 or the Roads Act 1993, and the council may also cancel a permit if public or residential amenity is harmed.

City of Sydney’s page puts numbers beside its own permits: $218 per standing for a mobile crane permit, and $337 for each week or part of a week of single residential loading and unloading. Where an application needs nothing more, the same page allows at least two working days for it to be assessed.

Sources for this page

General information only: check SafeWork NSW and your council before you hire.