Alignment of Drive with Dropped Kerb

Quite common on some roads, but might look odd for yours.

It is legal to drive on the footway to gain access when parking

I have 6 metres of dropped kerb, but its around 8 metres between the gateposts.

Regardless of what it "looks" like, nobody has said anything about it in the last 27 years

I think that suggestion needs a caveat or two.

Chris

"It is not an offence under this section to drive a mechanically propelled vehicle on any land within fifteen yards of a road, being a road on which a motor vehicle may lawfully be driven, for the purpose only of parking the vehicle on that land."

IANAL, so I wonder how that plays off against:

I would have thought that the dropped kerb area would be constructed to take vehicular traffic. The original pavement either side, not necessarily so.

Chris

Generalie has not mentioned any such imposed condition.

I would speak to your local highways department they may have specifications for vehicular pavement cross-overs

Not here. There is a Virgin Media duct about 5cm below the surface of the pavement running past our dropped kerb. This has collapsed a few times. Skip lorries are particularly efficient at finding such weaknesses. John

You'll get on better if you ask the local authority for permission first. You can't just decide what you want and get a contractor in. I imagine this is typical of most authorities:

The OP does not want to change the dropped kerb, just widen the opening to their property so that a second car can enter at an angle over the existing dropped kerb. John

Thanks for the insight Chris and Nick.

No, I am not aware of any unusual restrictions which would limit my crossing of the footway.

My property is located on a pretty standard 1970s housing estate, albeit in a very nice village.

Phil

Good point - where there is no dropped kerb, I thought it was an offence to drive over a footpath e. g. to park in (what was) a front garden.

Phil

Thanks TD

I am reluctant to involve the council as past experiences with other departments have not been particularly productive/harmonius.

Also, there was a lot of hype a while ago about permeable drives and soak aways which I really don't want to revisit.

Phil

Yes. Parking on the pavement where signs require it in London would not be possible if there were any blanket restriction on driving there.

As an example where front walls have been removed to allow parking consider Rosthernmere Road Cheald Hulme (picked at random).

The wording suggests that parking anywhere is in fact OK,.

If your drive or paved-over garden slopes downwards towards the road then you must install a channel drain at your boundary which is connected to your own soakaway.

Discharging surface water onto the highway is now banned (but this ssems to be ignored by most people block-paving their front garden).

In that case he should get on an do it. The entire frontage of a house opposite me has been converted into a drive (accommodating four or five cars) accessed from an existing dropped curve.

A shame that surface water isn't banned from running into our garden in massive quantities when the road drains are blocked. Cleaning/clearing road drains seems to be a mostly forgotten art.