After builders cleaning in St Helens

The 2026/27 fees list sets a skip licence on the highway at £26 for each seven-day period. Only registered skip operators can apply, so a resident cannot get one directly, and if the council has to remove an unauthorised skip it recovers its cost plus 15%. A scaffolding or hoarding licence is £156 for the first calendar month and £156 for each month after, with £52 more if it is issued retrospectively, and only companies that have signed the council's HSE protocol and joined its select list are considered. A crane or cherry picker needs a £208 highway occupation licence.

The council also sells a dispensation to park on restricted highway for anyone working on a property with no other parking: £17 per vehicle per day, plus an administration fee of £11 with more than two working days' notice or £17 with less. Dispensations longer than two weeks are granted only in special cases. For a terrace with a yellow line outside, that is the way to keep the crew's van legal; arrange it a few days ahead and tell the office. Paid parking is passed on at cost.

St Helens has eight conservation areas, each with an appraisal and management plan, and most also have Article 4 directions that control uPVC windows and doors, the removal of front garden walls and new hard-standings. The published directions cover High Street in Newton-le-Willows, Rainford, Rainhill and Vulcan Village, and tree work in a conservation area needs six weeks' notice. Victoria Square and the George Street Quarter both lie within 800 m of the middle of the Town Centre ward, where 33.3% of homes with a recorded build date predate 1900.

Where timber windows and old joinery survive, the crew brushes dust out of mouldings before wiping and lifts paint flecks off old glass only where they come away cleanly.

The council has made no Article 4 direction for HMOs. Its HMO planning document of January 2026 says permission will not normally be given for a new or enlarged HMO where HMOs would exceed 10% of homes within 50 metres, and names Newton-le-Willows West, Town Centre, West Park and Windle as the wards with the most. Mandatory HMO licensing covers five or more people from two or more households, at £248 a year in 2026/27, with pre-application advice at £162.

At the 2021 Census 47.0% of the borough's 81,011 households lived in semis, 28.3% in terraces, 15.8% in detached houses and 8.8% in flats, and 65.0% owned their home. Council building control charges £207.60 to check the plans for a single-storey extension of 10 to 40 square metres and £366.00 for inspections, or £667.20 as a building notice.

A 3-bed semi after an extension or a new kitchen is £332 all in. A post-war semi in Haydock gutted and replastered throughout takes 3 cleaners for 5 hours, £482, and a 4-bed detached house after a refurbishment 3 cleaners for 4 hours, £392. Every total is £30 per cleaner-hour plus £32 for equipment and detergents, and the full price list adds carpets, sofas and outside windows. For the dust itself, see a dust clean after sanding and plastering.