For many people, parking outside their own house can be both a reason for stress and come at a financial cost if you need to pay for a resident’s permit.
In certain urban areas, it can continue to be difficult to find a place to leave your car near to home.
A dropped kerb is a legal necessity if you wish to drive over the pavement onto your property.
Any entry onto a public highway from a domestic or commercial driveway area must have a dropped kerb.
A dropped kerb enables vehicles to cross the pavement from the road to a driveway and it is a legal necessity to have a dropped kerb if you intend to drive across the pavement onto your property.
Putting in a dropped kerb can make a huge improvement to accessing your property as well as helping to ensure people do not park in front of your driveway.
The law regarding dropped kerbs states: If you intend to drive a vehicle over the footway into your driveway off a highway, then you will need a dropped kerb.
If you do not have dropped kerb, you must never drive over the footway. If you do so, you are breaking the law and enforcement action might be taken to prevent such practice.
The pavement may require to be reinforced in front of the property, and in some cases, it may be necessary for lampposts, manhole covers and various other street furniture to be moved.
Drop Kerb Specialists in Mansfield
Dropped kerbs also called vehicle access crossovers, are an alteration to the footpath. It involves lowering the kerb and laying new foundations to the paving to enable a car to be driven onto the front area of a property.
The work involves lowering the kerbstones and strengthening the pavement to create a ramp, and must only be performed by an authorised company with Street Works Accreditation, and who have the required Public Liability insurance to comply with 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 conventional 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 putting in drop kerbs and making an application for the relevant planning permission. We are able to work in conjunction with your local county council to install a dropped kerb while complying with all necessary regulations.
You can either apply to your local council for approval for a dropped kerb outside your property or we are able to 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 proper qualifications in relation to the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, which is essential for any provider excavating a highway.
We focus on delivering a service that gets it correct 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 performed to the highest quality standards.
Our staff can visit your site to carry out a free no-obligation survey. This allows our surfacing contractors to completely understand your requirements and provide an accurate and affordable quote.
Local Kerb Dropping Contractors
The huge growth in demand for off-street parking has seen a growing number of people drop kerbs to establish car standing at the front of their properties.
Study by home insurer Direct Line shows that off-street parking is seen by estate agents as a beneficial feature which adds value to a residential or commercial property. This, coupled with escalating parking limitations in many residential areas, has resulted in planning applications for dropped kerbs increase massively over recent years.
But while putting in car standing space to the front of your home may well add value to your property, there are many things to consider, not least environmental consequences, and flooding is a major problem.
When you switch out a front garden with hard standing, rain can no longer absorb into the ground. As increasingly more households take this step, the cumulative effect severely increases the threat of flooding, so it’s important to include drainage in your plans.
Planning permission is normally called for if you wish to drop the kerb outside your property to permit a car to cross the pavement. This is because the pavement may need to be reinforced to take the weight of vehicles and prevent them from damaging the surface or any pipes or cables underneath. It is also to ensure the new access will never 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 find the relevant council at the government website). How much it costs to apply will depend on your specific location.
If permission is approved, you then you need to find a local specialist to perform the work for you.
It’s definitely not a DIY job as the council will have requirements that contractors must meet. Some will only permit you to use their endorsed contractors, while others make it possible for you to use your own, as long as they are certified to the requirements of the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, and hold public liability insurance. For this case, there may be an additional charge for highway assessments by the council.
Mansfield Vehicle Crossover Experts
But first it’s worth verifying if permission is likely to be granted. Below is a checklist of points to consider. If any among these criteria is not really met, planning permission is likely to be refused:
- Your front garden must be big enough for you to park your vehicle completely 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 primary roads.
- It has to be at least 1.5 m away from street lights and various other street furniture.
- It must meet visibility guidelines; this depends on the type of road.
- Suitable drainage must be provided to take the surplus surface water.
The extraction of tree roots must be avoided. - The incline from your home to the road must not be too steep.
- Lastly, you as the home owner must agree to the kerb being dropped; for example, a tenant can not apply on their landlord’s behalf.