A dropped kerb refused on visibility, then redesigned

A dropped kerb refused on visibility is usually not a refusal of the idea. It is a refusal of that position on that frontage, and the answer is often to move the access along the boundary until the splay falls on land you control. In the illustrative case below, an application for a vehicular access was refused on highway safety grounds, then approved four months later after the access moved 3 metres, the front wall came down to 600mm and the hedge was taken out. The property, the measurements and the outcome are illustrative and assembled to show the sequence rather than to report a real decision.

Two consents are involved and they are easy to confuse. Planning permission for the access, then a licence from the highway authority for the crossing itself.

The property and the request

Assume a 1930s semi-detached house on a classified road with a 30mph limit, a front garden 5.5 metres deep, a 1.2 metre brick wall across the frontage and a privet hedge standing about 1.8 metres high inside the wall. Off-street parking for one car was wanted, with a second space if the geometry allowed.

Because the road is classified, the permitted development right for forming an access does not apply. Part 2 of Schedule 2 to the General Permitted Development Order 2015 permits the formation or alteration of a means of access to a highway in connection with permitted development, and it does not extend to a trunk road or a classified road. A planning application was therefore required.

The hard surface raised a second point. A new impermeable surface in a front garden above a small area needs permission unless it is permeable or drains to a permeable area within the curtilage, so the surfacing specification had to be settled at the same time.

The highway authority objection

The highway authority objected, and its consultation response gave three reasons.

Visibility to the north was obstructed by a mature hedge in the neighbour's frontage. Visibility to the south was restricted by the applicant's own brick wall. And the proposed crossing was 11 metres from an existing junction, within the distance at which the authority resisted new accesses on that length of road.

The application was refused on highway safety grounds. The decision notice cited the development plan's highway safety policy and the national policy position that development should provide safe and suitable access.

Two observations about that refusal. The junction proximity point was the serious one, because no amount of hedge removal would have fixed it. And the objection about the neighbour's hedge was unanswerable as submitted, since the applicant could not require its removal.

Measuring the splay honestly

The standard applied in the illustrative case was a 2.4 metre set-back from the edge of the carriageway, with clear visibility along the nearside carriageway edge in each direction to a distance derived from stopping sight distance at the road's speed. For a 30mph street, authorities commonly apply a figure in the order of 43 metres, taken from Manual for Streets. Confirm the authority's own standard before drawing anything, because it varies and a measured 85th percentile speed survey sometimes justifies a shorter distance.

Measure it on site rather than scaling from mapping. The exercise takes an hour with a tape, two canes and a camera.

1. Mark the proposed driver eye position 2.4 metres back from the carriageway edge, on the centre line of the access.
2. Run a tape along the nearside carriageway edge in each direction to the required distance and mark the end point.
3. Stand at the eye position and photograph along each splay line at about 1.05 metres above the ground, which is roughly a driver's eye height in a car.
4. Record every obstruction inside the triangle: walls, hedges, fences, street furniture, parked cars, a street tree.
5. Note who owns each obstruction and whether it sits on your frontage, the neighbour's or the highway.

The last step is the one that decides whether a redesign can work.

Hedge, wall and the land you control

The splay drawing in the refused application showed clear visibility achieved partly across the neighbour's garden. That is not evidence of anything. A splay has to be achievable and maintainable on land the applicant controls or on publicly maintained highway land, and a condition cannot require works to a third party's hedge.

On the applicant's own frontage the position was better than it first looked. The brick wall could come down to 600mm, which is below a driver's eye line and below the height at which the authority treats a boundary as an obstruction. The privet hedge could be removed entirely, and replaced behind the splay with planting kept low by condition.

The street tree in the verge belonged to the authority and stayed. Its trunk sat outside the splay triangle, and its canopy was well above eye height, so it was not an obstruction for this purpose.

The revised access position

Moving the access 3 metres south did the work. At the new position the junction separation increased to 14 metres, which met the authority's standard for that road, and the northern splay no longer needed to cross the neighbour's frontage because the sightline ran further out into the carriageway alignment.

The revised layout gave one space on the hardstanding and a second in tandem behind it, with a 0.6 metre margin to the side boundary. The crossing width was set at 3.6 metres at the kerb line, tapering to a 3 metre drive, which the authority accepted for a single dwelling.

Drainage was handled by permeable block paving laid on a free-draining sub-base, with a 100mm upstand kerb at the back of the footway and a drainage channel across the entrance so nothing ran onto the public highway. That specification answered both the planning point about surfacing and the highway authority's standing requirement.

Where a scheme is larger than a single house, the same arithmetic drives the whole layout, as the access work in nine dwellings on a village edge site shows, and a single new plot raises it in the same form again in a self-build plot on a garden site.

What was submitted second time

The resubmission was deliberately short and precise.

• Location plan at 1:1250 with the site edged red.
• Existing site plan at 1:200 showing the wall, the hedge, the street tree and the junction, with the distance to the junction dimensioned.
• Proposed site plan at 1:200 showing the access position, crossing width, drive dimensions, both parking spaces, the retained and removed boundary features, and the surfacing.
• A visibility splay drawing at 1:200 with the 2.4 metre set-back and the sightlines dimensioned to the required distance, hatched to show the land within the applicant's control.
• Four annotated photographs from the driver eye position, two in each direction, dated.
• A one page covering statement responding to each of the three reasons for refusal in turn.
• A drainage note giving the permeable construction and the channel detail.

No transport assessment was needed, and for a single dwelling none would have been proportionate. On a larger scheme a Transport Statement would carry the trip generation and access geometry instead.

Permission was granted with conditions requiring the visibility splays to be provided before first use of the access and kept clear of obstruction above 600mm in perpetuity, the surfacing to be permeable, and the redundant section of footway crossing to be reinstated.

The licence that followed the permission

Planning permission allows the access. It does not allow anyone to touch the public highway.

The crossing itself was constructed under a licence from the highway authority under section 184 of the Highways Act 1980, applied for after permission was granted. The authority specified the construction, inspected the works, and in this case required the work to be carried out by one of its approved contractors.

Two costs surprised the owner. A gas valve cover and a telecoms chamber sat within the crossing width and had to be reset by the utilities, each with its own lead time and charge. And the authority's inspection fee was payable whether or not the works passed first time.

Sequence the whole thing in this order: measure, confirm the authority's standard, apply for planning permission, then apply for the crossing licence, then book the contractor. Doing it in any other order costs money.

This is general guidance, not legal advice. Check the position with your local planning authority or a qualified professional before relying on it, and confirm the highway authority's own visibility standards for the road.

Enter your postcode on PlanScope to see which documents an access application is likely to need. PlanScope provides AI-assisted draft reports for planning applications. Reports should be reviewed before submission. We do not guarantee planning approval.