Driveway Extension - Permitted Development Rights

littleboo

Hi,

Has anyone had any experience of permitted development rights re widening a driveway ?
I have the concrete driveway that has been there since the house was built and want to widen it to provide a little extra room to get out the car. The total addition would be less than 5 square meters and would be concrete as per the existing.
My understanding from reading Part 1, Class F of the General Permitted Development Order (Amended) 2008 and Conditions F1 is that if the addition is less than 5 square metres, this can be carried out without planning permission and without the requirement to use a porous material or provide drainage for the water run off on my property.
So I believe I can carry out this work without planning permission, using concrete and without making provision for drainage.
Can anyone confirm is this is correct ?

ic

I'm interested in the answer to this, I'd like to widen mine by about a foot to make it less of a squeeze between the two cars.

macman

Are you intending to widen just the driveway, or the entrance and driveway?

littleboo

Just the driveway itself. The dropped kerb is already wide enough to accommodate the extra width.

Ems112

It depends on whether your property has had permitted development rights removed (check your title and local search from when you purchased). If they were not removed then you are probably ok but it is always worth telephoning the local authority to check.

ritesh

I had my driveway resurfaced about 2 years ago, not long after the legislation came in which makes the home owner responsible for run-off rainwater. This was in Stevenage. I spoke to the council and they informed me that I had to make provisions to ensure that the rainwater is taken care of i.e. does not just run-off on to the road. I must admit the situation is a little bit in the grey area. However, we had a soak built into the driveway and during the course of the works I took various photgraphs to show the soak away. With the drive sloping down from the house to the pavement we have a grill which catches all the run-off water which in turns goes into the soak away. This seemed to suffice as far as the council was concerned.

Hope this helps.

littleboo

Thanks for the replies. I'm only adding a narrow strip the length of the driveway, the total additional area will be less than 5 square meters. The permitted development regs seem to indicate that if under 5 square meters there is no requirement to provide drainage or use a porous material. I have spoken to my local planning department but they are a bit vague and unwilling to commit unless I apply for a certificate of lawful development.

tco03

I shouldnt think it would be a problem but it all depends on location i guess.

BrokeButWorkingOnIt

I think a previous poster mentioned the most salient point- about removal of PD rights.
Your Local DM Planners must disclose if this has been done without the cost of an application for Cert of L.Use.
This info should be in your searches too if you bought the house after PD rights removed.

New developments often have extra restrictions -(an Article 4 direction as I recall) to control denser modern estates.
And old ones can have 'em too, to control dev on listed buildings or conservation areas.
The 5 square metre rule is poorly drafted -I don't think there is anything in the regs to stop you doing a 4 sq metre addition, waiting awhile, & then doing another 4 sq meter addition etc, Cheers

keystone

littleboo wrote: »

Can anyone confirm is this is correct ?

Yes - your local planning department can or not. Only they can advise you.

Cheers

littleboo

A quick update, I was eventually after much chasing advised by my local authority planning department that I would need planning permission to extend my driveway as I outlined in the first post. I challenged them on this, and after more delay and more chasing they confirmed that the information they had given me was incorrect and plannning permssion was not required.