For lots of people, parking outside their own house can be both a reason for stress and come at a financial cost if you need to buy a resident’s permit.
In certain urban regions, it can still be difficult to find a place to leave your car close to home.
A dropped kerb is a legal requirement if you wish to drive across the pavement onto your residential or commercial property.
Any entry onto a public highway from a residential or commercial driveway area must have a dropped kerb.
A dropped kerb permits vehicles to cross the pavement from the road to a driveway and it is a legal requirement to have a dropped kerb if you want to drive across the pavement onto your property.
Putting in a dropped kerb can make a significant improvement to easy access your property along with helping to ensure people do not park across your driveway.
The law pertaining to dropped kerbs states: If you intend to drive a vehicle over the footway in to your driveway off a highway, then you will need a dropped kerb.
If you do not have dropped kerb, you must not drive over the footway. If you do this, you are breaking the law and enforcement action may be taken to prevent such practice.
The pavement may need to be strengthened in front of the property, and in many cases, it may be essential for lampposts, manhole covers and various other street furniture to be moved.
Drop Kerb Specialists in Nottingham
Dropped kerbs also known as vehicle access crossovers, are an alteration to the footpath. It entails lowering the kerb and laying new foundations to the paving to make it possible for a car to be driven onto the front area of a property.
The work involves lowering the kerbstones and bolstering the pavement to create a ramp, and must solely be performed by an authorised company with Street Works Accreditation, and who have the necessary Public Liability insurance to fulfill the local authorities requirements.
Vehicle access cross overs comprise normally of 3 or 4 dropped kerbs with a tapered or transition kerb on either side. The standard maximum total width at road level of dropped kerbs for a VAC is 3.6 metres (i.e. normally 4 dropped kerbs).
Our team have many years experience in installing drop kerbs and making an application for the appropriate planning permission. We can work in conjunction with your local county council to install a dropped kerb while abiding by all essential regulations.
You can either apply to your local council for approval for a dropped kerb outside your property or we can apply to your local authority in your place.
We are members of the Streetworks Qualifications Register (SWQR). The SWQR holds details of qualified operators who have gained the appropriate qualifications in regard to the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, which is essential for any contractor excavating a highway.
We concentrate on delivering a service that gets it right the first time. By buying high quality components, equipment and processes, we ensure that we deliver sustainable and cost effective solutions that will last.
We pride ourselves on our exceptional workmanship and customer care and we ensure that every job is carried out to the highest quality standards.
Our team can check out your site to carry out a free no-obligation survey. This enables our surfacing contractors to fully understand your requirements and provide an accurate and affordable quote.
Local Kerb Dropping Contractors
The massive growth in demand for off-street parking has seen a growing number of people drop kerbs to create car standing at the front of their homes.
Study by home insurer Direct Line shows that off-street parking is regarded by estate agents as a desirable feature which adds value to a property. This, combined with increasing parking restrictions in lots of residential locations, has resulted in planning applications for dropped kerbs increase greatly over recent years.
But while putting in car standing space to the front of your home can add value to your property, there are numerous things to think about, not least environmental issues, and flooding is a major issue.
When you replace a front lawn with hard standing, rainwater can no longer absorb into the ground. As increasingly more households take this step, the cumulative effect seriously increases the threat of flooding, so it’s important to incorporate drainage in your plans.
Planning permission is usually required if you wish to drop the kerb outside your property to enable a car to cross the pavement. This is due to the fact that the pavement might need to be strengthened to take the weight of vehicles and prevent them from damaging the surface or any water pipes or cables underneath. It is in addition to ensure the new access will not be a safety risk to other highway users.
You can learn if you need planning permission by getting in touch with your local council (you can identify the relevant council at the government website). How much it costs to apply will depend upon your specific location.
If permission is given, you then you need to locate a local professional to perform the work for you.
It’s certainly not a DIY job as the council will have requirements that contractors must meet. Several will only permit you to use their endorsed contractors, while others allow you to use your own, just as long as they are certified to the requirements of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, and carry public liability insurance. For this case, there might be an added fee for highway assessments by the council.
Nottingham Vehicle Crossover Experts
But first it’s worth establishing if consent is likely to be granted. Below is a checklist of considerations. If any one of these criteria is not met, planning permission is probably to be refused:
- Your front garden must be large enough for you to park your vehicle entirely on your property.
- The kerb must be at minimum 4.8 m from the front of your house; or 6m if the parking area is in front of an entrance or garage.
- The parking area must be at least 2.4 m wide.
- The proposed access to your property must be more than 10m away from a road junction; 15m away from busy junctions or on major roads.
- It must be at least 1.5 m away from street lights and various other street furniture.
- It must meet visibility standards; this is dependent on the type of road.
- Appropriate drainage must be provided to remove the excess surface water.
The extraction of tree roots must be avoided. - The slope from your property to the road must not be too steep.
- Finally, you as the property owner must agree to the kerb being dropped; for instance, a renter can not apply on their landlord’s behalf.