For lots of people, parking outside their own home can be both a cause of stress and come at a monetary cost if you need to pay for a resident’s permit.
In certain urban regions, it can still be tricky to find a place to leave your car close to home.
A dropped kerb is a legal necessity if you want to drive across the pavement onto your residential or commercial property.
Any access 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 wish 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 make sure people do not park across your driveway.
The law pertaining to 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 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 require to be reinforced in front of the property, and in some cases, it may be essential for lampposts, manhole covers and various other street furniture to be relocated.
Drop Kerb Specialists in Nottingham
Dropped kerbs also known as vehicle access crossovers, are an adaptation to the footpath. It involves lowering the kerb and preparing 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 only be performed by an authorised company with Street Works Accreditation, and who have the necessary Public Liability insurance to comply with the local authorities regulations.
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 installing drop kerbs and making an application for the appropriate planning permission. We are able to 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 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 providers who have gained the appropriate qualifications in regard to the New Roads and Street Works Act 1991, which is necessary for any contractor excavating a highway.
We concentrate on delivering a product that gets it correct the first time. By investing in high quality materials, equipment and processes, we make sure that we deliver sustainable and affordable solutions that will last.
We pride ourselves on our outstanding workmanship and customer care and we make sure that every job is performed to the highest quality standards.
Our team can visit your site to perform a free no-obligation survey. This allows our surfacing contractors to fully understand your needs 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 create 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 market value to a property. This, combined with escalating parking limitations in many residential locations, has brought about planning applications for dropped kerbs increase greatly over recent years.
But while adding car standing space to the front of your home might add market value to your property, there are numerous things to take into consideration, not least environmental consequences, and flooding is a major concern.
When you replace a front lawn with hard standing, rain can no longer absorb into the ground. As increasingly more households take this step, the collective effect severely increases the threat of flooding, so it’s important to include drainage in your plans.
Planning permission is usually needed if you wish to drop the kerb outside your property to permit a car to cross the pavement. This is because the pavement might need to be reinforced to take the weight of motor vehicles and prevent them from damaging the surface or any water pipes or cables below. It is also to ensure the new access will not be a safety risk to other highway users.
You can find out if you require planning permission by contacting your local council (you can find the relevant council at the government website). How much it costs to apply will be dependent on your location.
If permission is given, you then you need to find a local specialist to perform the work for you.
It’s certainly not a DIY job as the council will have criteria that service providers must meet. Some will only allow you to use their endorsed contractors, while others allow 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. In this case, there might be an added fee for highway assessments by the council.
Nottingham Vehicle Crossover Experts
But first it’s worth verifying if permission is likely to be granted. Below is a checklist of considerations. If any one of these criteria is not really met, planning permission is very likely to be declined:
- Your front garden must be large enough for you to park your vehicle fully on your property.
- The kerb must be at least 4.8 m from the front of your house; or 6m if the parking area is in front of a door or garage.
- The parking area should be at least 2.4 m wide.
- The proposed access to your property should 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 standards; this is dependent on the type of road.
- Suitable drainage must be provided to take the excess surface water.
The removal of tree roots should be avoided. - The slope from your property to the road must not be too steep.
- Lastly, you as the home owner must agree to the kerb being dropped; as an example, a renter can not apply on their landlord’s behalf.