Skip hire in Inverness, made simple
Serving Inverness for 30+ years. Slide to find the right size, then get a fast, no-obligation quote.
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Skip Permits in Inverness
Inverness is covered by The Highland Council, the roads authority for the city. Skips on the road need a permit under the Roads (Scotland) Act 1984. A skip on your driveway or other private land doesn't need one. If it has to go on the road, we apply to the council for you.
| Council | The Highland Council (roads) |
|---|---|
| Permit cost | £115 for the first week, then £58 per week or part week |
| Notice needed | At least 7 days before the skip goes on the road |
| Maximum skip size on the road | 5m long and 2m wide |
| Lighting and marking | Marked to the Builder's Skips (Markings) (Scotland) Regulations 1986 with the owner's name and phone number, plus lamps on each corner and between the cones at night |
| Insurance | The skip company must hold at least £5 million public liability cover |
| No permit or breaking the conditions | £120 fixed penalty to the skip company |
| Applied for by | The skip company (that's us) |
At £115 for the first week, a road skip in Highland costs more than in most places, and it needs a week's notice. If you have a drive or a bit of garden, a skip off the road saves the permit fee altogether.
Inverness Recycling Centre
Inverness Recycling Centre is on Henderson Drive in the Longman area, close to the city centre. It's run by The Highland Council and is for residents' household waste only.
| Address | Henderson Drive, Henderson Road, Inverness IV1 1TR |
|---|---|
| Opening hours | Every day, 10am to 6pm |
| Cars | No booking needed |
| Vans and trailers | Must book a timeslot. Vans must be under 3.5 tonnes |
| DIY waste in vans or trailers | Not allowed. DIY waste can only come in a car |
| Soil, rubble and plasterboard | Accepted, but limited to one visit per day |
| Not accepted | Business or commercial waste |
Because DIY waste can't come in a van or trailer, a renovation means lots of car boot runs, one a day. A skip on your drive is the quicker way to clear a kitchen, bathroom or garden project.
Skip hire FAQs.
We provide cheap, local and reliable domestic skip hire in Inverness and within a 30 mile radius.
It’s not just a case of how much waste you have! You also need to consider how much room you have on your site and will then need to think about the type of waste you will be disposing of. For example if the waste is heavy (e.g. soil/brick/rubble) then you will be restricted as to how large a skip you can have.
When only a single skip is expected, we strongly believe that it’s better to hire a skip that you may not quite fill, as opposed to ordering a skip which ends up being too small meaning a second skip is then required as a result. In other words it’s better to overestimate than underestimate!
When filling a skip it can only be loaded up to the level of the actual skip itself.
It is important that your site foreman and operatives are aware of this as it is actually against the law for drivers to carry over loaded skips on the highways. Likewise, using boards around the skip in an attempt to increase it’s capacity (known in the trade as ‘greedy boards’) is illegal.
If a driver arrives on site to find an overloaded skip they are likely to turn away and leave without the skip, thus potentially incurring additional transport charges.
Though we try to be as flexible with hire periods as possible, as a general rule the maximum hire period is 7 days.
Of course should your site be an ongoing one where numerous skips are required and exchanged on a regular basis then there is nothing to worry about. If however, you require a skip that is likely to be needed for more than 7 days without exchanges, we request you inform us at the time of ordering as a rental charge may be applicable.
Yes. Though any skip that needs to be sited on a public highway, pavement or council owned verge, first requires permission from the local authority responsible.
Though the charges involved and the length of time it takes an application to be processed varies from council to council, in the vast majority of cases we can arrange the required permit on your behalf. Depending on the local authority in question, application periods can be anything from ‘same day’ to 4 weeks, so when you know that a permit is likely to be required on an upcoming site it is vital that you give us as much notice as possible to avoid any unnecessary delays.
Please also note that as the hirer, the lighting and coning of the skip whilst it is placed on public land is your responsibility, though we are usually able to arrange for the hire of these items on your behalf too.
A standard skip or roll-on-off vehicle usually requires a minimum of 10ft (3.3m) width and approximately 13ft (4m) headroom to safely gain access to a site. If your site access falls a little below these requirements we are able to (in most areas) arrange for smaller skips (depending on waste type) to be delivered on smaller lorries.
If you are in any doubt about the access to your sites, we are here to help, so just ask!
There are certain types of waste that cannot be placed in general waste skips under any circumstances.
Examples of such waste types include (but are not limited to): asbestos, fridges, freezers, batteries, tyres, gas cannisters, paint tins, food waste, fluorescent tubes, liquids, TV sets, computer monitors, plasterboard, electrical items (WEEE), mattresses, tree stumps, tree roots, carpet, vinyl, astroturf, rubber matting & roof felt.
It is vital that you always inform us of exactly what your are intending to dispose of at the time of ordering!
Local area guide
Skip hire in Inverness
Inverness is the largest city in the Scottish Highlands and its administrative capital, sitting at the mouth of the River Ness where it meets the Moray Firth, with a population of around 47,000. Long known as the Capital of the Highlands, it has been a strategic settlement since at least the sixth century, when St Columba is said to have visited the Pictish king Bridei here. Its position at the northern end of the Great Glen made it a natural crossroads, and it has been fought over repeatedly — the last pitched battle on British soil was fought at Culloden Moor, five miles east, in 1746.
Inverness Castle, a red sandstone Victorian building on the site of earlier fortifications, overlooks the river from a bluff in the centre of town and is currently being redeveloped as a major visitor attraction. Other landmarks include Inverness Cathedral, the Victorian Market, the Old High Church and the Ness Islands, a chain of wooded islands in the river linked by Victorian footbridges. The Caledonian Canal, engineered by Thomas Telford, runs through the city linking the North Sea to the Atlantic via Loch Ness, and the Culloden battlefield and Clava Cairns are both a short distance away.
Inverness is the transport hub for the whole of the north of Scotland, with Inverness station offering services to Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, Wick and Kyle of Lochalsh along with the Caledonian Sleeper to London. Inverness Airport at Dalcross serves domestic and some European routes, and the A9 runs south to Perth while the A82 heads down the Great Glen to Fort William. The city's neighbourhoods include Crown, Dalneigh, Hilton, Culduthel, Westhill, Smithton, Balloch and Milton of Leys, with Nairn, Beauly, Dingwall and the Black Isle within easy reach.
Housing in Inverness ranges from Victorian sandstone villas and terraces in the Crown and Ballifeary areas — the city's most established districts — to interwar housing in Dalneigh and Hilton, post-war estates at Merkinch and Raigmore, and extensive modern development at Milton of Leys, Ness-side and the ongoing Inverness East expansion. The city has been one of the fastest-growing in Scotland over the past two decades, and the surrounding Highlands support a very substantial holiday-let, self-catering and second-home market that generates constant refurbishment work.
That combination of period renovation, rapid new development and holiday-let refurbishment keeps skip hire in Inverness in steady demand, whether it's a villa refurbishment in the Crown, a rear extension in Westhill, a garden clearance in Culduthel, a self-catering property refit nearby or a unit strip-out on one of the industrial estates at Longman or Carse. Skips are available in a range of sizes to suit everything from a small domestic clear-out to a large building project, and while most of the modern estates have driveways where a skip can be placed without a permit, the Victorian streets closer to the centre rely on on-street parking, so a permit from Highland Council will be needed where the skip has to sit on the road. Booking a few days ahead helps secure the right size and allows time for any permit to be arranged.
Choose your skip size in Inverness
Not sure which size you need? Compare dimensions, capacity and typical uses — every size below is available in Inverness.