What Is a Section 138 Roads Act Approval and Why Does It Hold Up So Many Projects in NSW?

If your project involves any work within the road reserve in NSW - a new driveway crossover, a stormwater connection to the kerb, works on the footpath or nature strip - you'll need a Section 138 approval under the Roads Act 1993. And if you've been through the process before, you'll know it has a reputation for being slow, painful, and full of back-and-forth with council.

Here's what a Section 138 approval actually is, why it trips up so many projects, and what makes the difference between a smooth approval and months of RFIs.

What Does a Section 138 Approval Actually Cover?

Section 138 of the Roads Act 1993 says you can't carry out works in, on, or over a public road without the consent of the roads authority - which for local roads is your council. In practice, that captures a lot of common project elements:

• Vehicle crossovers and driveway laybacks at the kerb

• Stormwater drainage connections to the council system in the street

• Sewer or utility connections that cross the road reserve

• Kerb and gutter works, footpath works, or road pavement adjustments

• Hoarding, scaffolding, or cranes over the road during construction

If your development consent has conditions requiring works in the road reserve - and most residential developments do - a Section 138 approval is a separate application on top of your DA or CDC. It's not automatic and it's assessed on its own merits by council engineering officers.

Why Do Section 138 Applications Get So Many RFIs?

Council engineers assess Section 138 applications against their own design standards - and they're detail people. The most common reasons applications bounce back with requests for information (RFIs) include:

• Drawings that don't match council's standard details for crossovers, kerbs, or drainage connections

• Missing or incorrect levels - councils want to see existing and design surface levels tied to real survey data

• Stormwater connections that don't demonstrate adequate capacity or the correct invert levels

• Insufficient detail on how existing infrastructure - pits, services, street trees - will be protected or reinstated

• Traffic and pedestrian management gaps for the construction phase

Each RFI can add weeks to the process. Council issues the request, the engineer responds, council reviews again - and on a busy engineer's desk, every round trip can take a month or more. It's common for poorly prepared applications to go through three or four rounds before approval. That's a project sitting still the whole time, accruing holding costs.

What Makes the Difference Between a Smooth Approval and a Painful One?

Honestly? The quality of the civil design and documentation that goes in the first time. Council engineers aren't trying to be difficult - they're checking that the works meet their standards and won't create problems in their road reserve down the track. When the documentation answers their questions before they ask them, there's not much left to comment on.

That means designing to council's standard drawings and details from the start, getting the survey and levels right, showing the drainage calculations, and presenting it all in a package that development engineers can assess without having to chase anything. It sounds obvious, but a large share of Section 138 applications don't do it - which is why the process has the reputation it does.

A Real-World Example

We recently completed the civil design and Section 138 approval for a complex three split-level duplex on a steeply sloping site - the kind of project where the driveway grades, stormwater connections, and road reserve works all interact and there's plenty for council to pick at.

The result? Council came back with very little feedback and required minimal changes through the entire assessment process. Not because the project was simple - it wasn't - but because the documentation answered the hard questions upfront. The client's words, not ours: “The approval process was particularly well managed and it has been the smoothest approval we have had.”

This is what good civil engineering looks like on paper. It's not just about the design working - it's about council being able to see that it works without a single RFI.

When Should You Start the Section 138 Process?

Earlier than most people think. Because it's a separate approval from your DA or CDC, it's often left until construction is about to start - and that's when it becomes the critical path item holding everything up. If your consent conditions require road reserve works, get the civil design and Section 138 application moving as soon as consent is issued, if not before.

Need a Section 138 Approval Sorted for Your NSW Project?

Elevate Engineering Consultants handles civil design and Section 138 Roads Act approvals for residential and small commercial projects across the Central Coast, Sydney, and Hunter regions. We prepare documentation that council engineers can approve without the back-and-forth. Get in touch if you've got a project that needs to keep moving.