A dropped kerb alongside an extension application

A dropped kerb is a highway matter before it is a planning one. The crossing itself is authorised by the highway authority under section 184 of the Highways Act 1980, so a dropped kerb application planning officers never see can still be refused by a highway engineer who does not like the sightlines. Planning permission enters the picture in only two situations: where the access is formed onto a classified road, and where the new driveway surfacing counts as development in its own right. Most householders adding off-street parking alongside a rear extension end up dealing with two teams in the same building, working to different tests and different timescales.

Two consents, two desks, two tests

The planning system controls the use and appearance of land. The highway authority controls what happens in the public highway, which usually starts at the back edge of the footway and includes the verge, the kerb line and the carriageway.

Your front garden is yours. The footway in front of it is not. Lowering the kerb and strengthening the footway construction so a car can cross it are works in the highway, and only the highway authority can authorise them.

Which body that is depends on where you live. In a two-tier area it is the county council. In a unitary authority, metropolitan borough or London borough it is the same council that handles your planning application, though a different department. On a trunk road it is National Highways, and on a few roads in London it is Transport for London. Getting this wrong wastes a fortnight before anyone has looked at your drawings.

Applying under section 184

Section 184 of the Highways Act 1980 gives the authority the power to require a proper crossing where a vehicle is driven over a footway or verge, and it is the route under which vehicle crossings are approved and built. Driving across an unstrengthened footway is not simply discouraged. The authority can serve notice, carry out the works itself and recover the cost from the frontager.

The application is usually a short form plus a location plan and a sketch showing the proposed width, the position relative to your boundary and the position of any street furniture. Expect to supply:

1. A plan at a recognisable scale showing the house, the boundary and the proposed crossing position.
2. Dimensions of the hardstanding behind the crossing, so the engineer can see a vehicle will park clear of the footway.
3. Photographs of the frontage, including any trees, lamp columns, gullies and inspection covers.
4. Evidence of ownership or the freeholder's consent where the frontage is not yours alone.

Some authorities insist on using their own term contractor. Others operate an approved contractor list and let you appoint from it. Either way the works are inspected and signed off by the authority, and the finished crossing stays part of the public highway, maintained at public expense once accepted.

Where planning permission is needed as well

Forming a new means of access to a highway is permitted development under Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015, but that permission is withdrawn where the highway is a trunk road or a classified road. An A, B or C road frontage therefore needs a planning application for the access, and the application will be judged on highway safety: visibility in both directions, the speed and volume of passing traffic, and whether a vehicle can enter and leave in forward gear.

Permission is also needed where a condition on an earlier permission removed the right, which is common on estates built in the past thirty years, and where an Article 4 direction has withdrawn householder permitted development in a conservation area.

If the access goes in at the same time as a rear extension, the two can sit in one application. That is usually the cleaner route, because the officer sees the whole scheme and the drawings only have to be produced once. The policy test for anything in the front garden is tighter than for work at the back, which is a point covered more fully in the article on why front extensions are harder than rear ones.

What the engineer looks at on the ground

Visibility is the first thing. The engineer wants to see that a driver reversing out, or pulling out forwards, can see approaching traffic and be seen in turn. Boundary walls, hedges and parked cars on either side all reduce that, and a condition cutting a wall down to around a metre near the access is a routine outcome.

Then come the obstructions. A street tree within the proposed crossing is often fatal to that exact position, particularly where the tree is protected by a Tree Preservation Order or stands in a conservation area, where six weeks' notice is required before any work. Lamp columns, telecoms cabinets, stop taps, gully gratings and inspection chambers can usually be moved, at your cost, by the undertaker that owns them. That cost is frequently larger than the crossing itself.

Gradients matter too. The fall from the footway level to your driveway has to be gentle enough that a car does not ground, and the footway crossfall has to keep draining along the channel rather than into your garage door.

And one point catches people out repeatedly: the crossing must serve a hardstanding deep enough to hold a car clear of the footway. A driveway that leaves a bonnet overhanging the pavement will not be approved, however keen you are on the extension behind it.

Surfacing and the front garden rules

Laying a hard surface within the curtilage of a house is permitted development under Class F of Part 1 of Schedule 2 to the Order, with a condition attached to land between the principal elevation and a highway. There the surface has to be made of porous material, or run-off has to be directed to a permeable or porous area within your own curtilage. Government guidance on paving front gardens puts the practical line at five square metres: more than that in impermeable surfacing, draining to the road, is development and needs permission.

Permeable block paving, gravel retained in a cellular grid, and resin-bound surfaces laid over a free-draining base all satisfy the condition. So does conventional paving falling to a gravel strip or a shallow filter drain along the boundary. Draw the drainage arrangement on the plan rather than leaving it to be assumed, because an officer who cannot see where the water goes will ask.

Costs, programme and sequencing

Charges for a vehicle crossing are set locally and published by each highway authority, usually as an application fee plus a quoted price for the works, with separate charges for moving apparatus. They are reviewed periodically, so take the figure from the authority's current schedule rather than from a neighbour who did theirs three years ago.

On timing, treat the crossing as the longer pole. A householder planning application is normally determined in eight weeks. A crossing application involves a site visit, a quotation, acceptance, a works order and a slot in the contractor's programme, and that chain can easily run past the planning decision.

The sensible order is to apply for both at once, build the extension, then have the crossing constructed last. Footway works ahead of the build get churned up by deliveries and skips, and no authority will reconstruct them for free. Where the extension drawings need a supporting statement, the access and parking arrangement belongs in the design and access statement rather than being left to the site plan, and on a classified road the highway safety case is worth setting out properly in a planning statement.

This is general guidance, not legal advice; check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it. A Lawful Development Certificate is the only formal way to confirm that works are lawful.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which reports a householder scheme on your frontage is likely to need.

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