Scaffolding in Dartford, Gravesend and Northfleet: The 2026 Guide to Licences, Costs and Ground Conditions

By the team at JK Access Solutions, scaffolding contractors covering Kent and London. Last reviewed September 2026.

The short answer

If your scaffold will stand on a public footpath or road anywhere in Dartford, Gravesend, Northfleet, Swanscombe or Greenhithe, the licence comes from Kent County Council, not from Dartford Borough Council or Gravesham Borough Council. KCC is the highway authority for this area and issues scaffolding licences through its StarGo portal, at £52 per 7 days for 2026 to 2027, with a £78 site inspection fee where an inspection is deemed necessary. Applications must be submitted at least 5 working days before the licence is due to start, and the scaffolding contractor applies, not the homeowner.

Planning permission is a separate question, and in this corner of Kent it has an unusual answer. If the property sits inside the Ebbsfleet Urban Development Area, the planning decision-maker is Ebbsfleet Development Corporation, not the borough council.

Scaffolding that stands entirely within your own boundary, on your drive or in your garden, needs no highway licence at all.

Who actually issues a scaffolding licence in Dartford and Gravesend?

This is the single most common point of confusion in north west Kent, and it costs people time.

Dartford and Gravesham are borough councils. They handle planning applications, building control, conservation areas, parking and waste. They do not manage the roads. Kent County Council is the highway authority for almost every adopted road in both boroughs, so anything placed on the public highway, including scaffolding, hoardings and skips, is licensed by KCC under Section 169 of the Highways Act 1980.

That is different from Medway, which is a unitary authority and licenses its own roads. It is the same arrangement as Canterbury and Thanet. If you have read our Medway scaffolding guide and assumed the process transfers, it does not.

What KCC expects on site

KCC publishes its scaffolding conditions in full, and they are worth knowing before you accept a quote, because a contractor who ignores them will get your job stopped:

• £5 million public liability insurance, with proof submitted before work starts
• 1.2 metres minimum clear width between the scaffold and the carriageway if the scaffold is walk-around
• 1.2 metres minimum walkway width and 2.5 metres minimum headroom if the scaffold is walk-under, with padding on any coupler below 2.5 metres
• Vertical standards painted white for at least 2.5 metres from pavement level
• Standards lit at night (from 30 minutes before sunset to 30 minutes after sunrise) if the scaffold sits in or within 45cm of the carriageway
• Company name plus daytime and out of hours telephone numbers displayed at all times
• Debris netting installed where required by the special conditions on your licence
• £120 charged for every additional site visit where a routine inspection finds an infringement

That last line is the one people miss. Get the guarding wrong and each corrective visit is billed back to whoever holds the licence.

The Ebbsfleet exception

Here is the part no other scaffolding page for this area explains.

Ebbsfleet Development Corporation was established in 2015 to deliver up to 15,000 homes as Ebbsfleet Garden City. Planning powers were transferred to it from Kent County Council, Dartford Borough Council and Gravesham Borough Council. Within the Ebbsfleet Urban Development Area, EDC is the local planning authority and decision-making body for the majority of planning applications, while the boroughs keep the plan-making role.

The urban development area covers Eastern Quarry (now Whitecliffe), Ebbsfleet Green, Ebbsfleet Central, Springhead and Northfleet Riverside. So a property in Castle Hill, Alkerden, Ashmere, Springhead Park, Cable Wharf or Harbour Village sits under EDC for planning purposes, even though its postal address says Dartford or Gravesend.

Three practical consequences:

1. Permitted development rights are often restricted on new-build Ebbsfleet homes. EDC states that because of the new-build nature of most homes in Ebbsfleet, even some smaller proposals still require planning permission. Check before you commit to an extension or loft conversion that needs scaffold.
2. Building control has not moved. Dartford Borough Council runs its own building control service. Gravesham uses South Thames Gateway Building Control Partnership. EDC holds no building regulation documents.
3. The highway licence is still KCC’s. EDC took planning powers, not highway powers. Section 38 highway adoption agreements remain with Kent County Council as local highway authority.

If you are unsure which side of the line you are on, EDC publishes an interactive development area map, and its planning team will confirm by email.

How much does scaffolding cost in Dartford, Gravesend and Northfleet?

Indicative market ranges for this corridor in 2026, supplied and erected, for a typical two storey property. These are guide figures to help you sanity-check a quote, not a quotation.

Add the KCC licence fee on top where the scaffold touches the highway, plus any extended hire beyond the included period. Our Kent scaffolding cost guide breaks the pricing down line by line, and if the job involves stripping a roof in winter, read temporary roofs explained before you accept a quote without one.

The weekly fee trap: Kent bills differently from London

Dartford borders the London Borough of Bexley. Two houses a few hundred metres apart, one in Dartford and one in Crayford or Slade Green, sit under completely different fee models, and the gap is not small.

Kent County Council charges per 7 days. The London boroughs charge a flat fee for a fixed period, usually three months. That single structural difference changes which side of the boundary is cheaper depending entirely on how long your job runs.

Read down the Kent column and the point becomes obvious. A short job is materially cheaper in Kent. A job that overruns is not. Kent’s weekly rate passes Bromley’s lowest band at around week six, and passes Bexley’s three month fee at around week fifteen.

For a homeowner this means the licence stops being a rounding error the moment the programme slips. If your builder is vague about start dates, the scaffold sits up doing nothing and the meter keeps running. Ask for a written programme before the scaffold goes up, not after.

Fees are set annually, usually each April. Confirm current figures with the relevant authority before you budget. Our Bromley, Orpington and Sidcup guide covers the London borough side of the boundary in detail.

Why ground conditions matter more here than almost anywhere in Kent

This is the technical point that separates a competent scaffold in this corridor from a risky one, and it is specific to the Dartford to Gravesend stretch of the Thames.

Ebbsfleet, Swanscombe and Northfleet were quarried for chalk and gravel for centuries to feed the north Kent cement industry. Whitecliffe, formerly Eastern Quarry, is a 667 acre former chalk pit and the largest development site in Ebbsfleet Garden City. Much of the wider regeneration area is previously used brownfield land, including former pits and works that were later backfilled.

Backfilled ground is made ground, and made ground behaves nothing like undisturbed chalk. It can be variable in depth across a single plot, poorly compacted, and prone to settlement under concentrated load.

Scaffolding concentrates load. A standard transmits the weight of every lift above it into a base plate roughly 150mm square. On a fully sheeted scaffold with a temporary roof, that load climbs sharply, and wind loading adds more. TG20:21 and SG4 both expect the founding conditions to be assessed rather than assumed.

What good practice looks like on made ground in this area:

• Sole boards as standard, not as an afterthought, spreading load across more than one standard
• Larger spreader boards or a scaffold-specific base design where the ground is soft, recently landscaped or over backfill
• Never founding on unconsolidated spoil, freshly laid topsoil or a new driveway sub-base without checking
• A written design rather than a TG20:21 compliance sheet where the scaffold is heavily loaded, fully sheeted or founded on questionable ground
• Re-checking base plates after heavy rain, because settlement in made ground often shows up after a wet week rather than on day one

If a contractor quotes a fully sheeted scaffold or a temporary roof on a plot in Ebbsfleet, Swanscombe or Northfleet without once asking what is under the base plates, that is a warning sign.

Conservation areas and older frontages

Not everything here is new build. The older parts of both boroughs need a different approach.

Dartford Borough Council designates six conservation areas: Dartford Town Centre, Greenhithe, Southfleet, Hook Green, Church Hill in Wilmington, and Red Street. Gravesham has 23 conservation areas, concentrated around Gravesend town centre, the riverside and the older villages.

Conservation area status does not stop you putting up scaffolding. It does change how the scaffold should be tied to the building. On Victorian and Georgian frontages, on ragstone, flint or soft lime mortar, drilled anchor ties can cause real and visible damage that is expensive to make good.

The alternatives are well established and any competent contractor should offer them:

• Window ties and reveal ties, which grip inside an opening with no drilling
• Box ties around a structural column or pier
• Rakers and buttresses where tying into the facade is not appropriate at all

Bear in mind that sheeting or netting a scaffold significantly increases wind loading on it, which increases the tie duty. On an exposed Thames-side elevation at Northfleet Riverside or Cable Wharf, that matters. If the tie strategy has to be non-invasive and the scaffold also has to be sheeted, the design needs to reconcile both, and that is a conversation to have before the quote is signed.

Listed building consent, where it is needed, comes from the borough council or from EDC depending on where the property sits.

What to ask before you accept a quote

A short checklist that will tell you quickly whether a contractor knows this area:

1. Will this scaffold stand on the highway, and who is applying for the licence? The scaffolding company should apply to KCC, not you. KCC is explicit that the company responsible for placing the structure should be registered to apply on the customer’s behalf.
2. What is the hire period, and what is the weekly rate after it expires? With KCC billing weekly, an open-ended hire period is an open-ended cost.
3. What are you founding the standards on? Especially on any plot in or near Ebbsfleet, Swanscombe or Northfleet.
4. Is this a TG20:21 compliance sheet job or a designed scaffold? Ask for the paperwork either way.
5. How will you tie into the building? Non-invasive ties on any older or conservation area frontage.
6. Who inspects it, and how often? Scaffolds need inspection before first use, after alteration, after any event likely to have affected stability, and at intervals not exceeding 7 days. Our scaffold inspection requirements guide covers the legal position in full.
7. Can I see your £5 million public liability certificate? KCC requires it before work starts, so any contractor working legally on the highway already has it to hand.

Areas we cover in north west Kent

JK Access Solutions provides domestic, commercial and industrial scaffolding across Dartford, Gravesend, Northfleet, Swanscombe, Greenhithe, Stone, Wilmington, Darenth, Sutton at Hone, Hextable, Bean, Southfleet, Istead Rise, Meopham, Higham and the Ebbsfleet Garden City development sites, as well as the wider Medway towns and the London boroughs across the boundary.

We are based in Chatham, which puts the whole Dartford to Gravesend corridor comfortably within reach for site visits, erection and dismantles.

Need a scaffold in Dartford, Gravesend or Northfleet? Get in touch for a free site visit and a written quote. Tell us the address and roughly how long the works will run, and we will tell you whether a highway licence is needed and what it will cost before you commit to anything.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need a licence for scaffolding in Dartford?

Only if the scaffold stands on the public highway, which includes the footpath. If it sits entirely on your own land, no licence is needed. Where a licence is required it comes from Kent County Council, not Dartford Borough Council, and your scaffolding contractor should apply for it.

Who issues scaffolding licences in Gravesend and Northfleet?

Kent County Council, as the highway authority for Gravesham borough. Applications go through KCC’s StarGo portal and must be submitted at least 5 working days before the licence start date. Gravesham Borough Council does not issue scaffolding licences.

How much is a scaffolding licence in Kent in 2026?

The 2026 to 2027 fee is £52 per 7 days, with a £78 site inspection fee where an inspection is deemed necessary. Additional site visits triggered by a licence infringement are charged at £120 per visit. Fees are reviewed annually, so confirm the current rate before budgeting.

Does Ebbsfleet Development Corporation handle scaffolding?

No. EDC is the planning decision-maker for the Ebbsfleet Urban Development Area, so it determines planning applications for properties in Whitecliffe, Ebbsfleet Green, Ebbsfleet Central, Springhead and Northfleet Riverside. Highway licences for scaffolding remain with Kent County Council, and building control remains with Dartford Borough Council or South Thames Gateway Building Control Partnership.

How much does scaffolding cost in Gravesend?

For a typical two storey property, expect roughly £550 to £900 for a single elevation and £1,600 to £2,800 for a full wrap, excluding VAT and any highway licence fee. A temporary roof over a re-roof will cost considerably more. Prices vary with access, height, duration and ground conditions, so treat these as guide ranges rather than quotes.

Is the ground in Ebbsfleet and Swanscombe a problem for scaffolding?

It can be. Large parts of the area are former chalk quarries and cement works that were later backfilled, so made ground is common and its depth and compaction vary across a site. Scaffold standards concentrate load into small base plates, so sole boards, spreaders and in some cases a designed scaffold base are needed rather than assumed. Any contractor quoting a sheeted scaffold or temporary roof here should be asking what is under the base plates.

How long can scaffolding stay up in Dartford?

There is no fixed statutory limit, but the KCC licence period you pay for governs it, and KCC conditions state that no scaffold shall remain on the highway longer than necessary. Because KCC bills weekly, a scaffold left standing after works finish costs money every week. Agree a programme and a dismantle date in writing.