Highways planning permission to build an access road down the side of my property

mulderbauer

Hi,

Appreciate I'm on the wrong subject field but any advice welcome

I'm considering putting planning permission in to build a house or maybe more if circumstances allow... at the back of my property. We are lucky in that we have a 6 metre gap between us and the house next door which is on my property and this opens up onto my driveway and the street. We are on a quiet residential road but as its a bus route I've been told we need swing room onto the access road.the questions is, is this correct and what do they class as as a swing access in terms of room etc

Additionally is a single lane adequate for an access road(maybe for two or more properties) widening at the top or is two required?

Many thanks in advance

G_M

Go and have a chat with the Planners at the local council. Mine are very helpful, and you don't even need an appointment for some informal advice.

Take drawings, plans, rough sketches, googlemap ictures etc just so you can clearly show what you are considering.

they'll say "out of the question", or " maybe if you do it this way", or " yes, that looks fine".

Of course you cannot guarantee that what they say will be ultimately approved but they'll give far better guiadance than anyone here.

Sugared-frog

I am making a guess here but swing access is probably to do with larger vehicles going down the road. Their turning circle is obviously larger - there is a proper term for the space required for a large vehicle. There is a narrow road along side my house and the footpath often gets used by the bin lorry to get around the corner, and at some point someone managed to hit my garden wall and scrap along it.

Your design would need to allow for large delivery lorries (the removal van perhaps), bin lorries and the fire brigade access I presume.

mulderbauer

Thanks for the advice GM. I thought the process was a lot more formal than that and I would need architectural plans, at the moment I just want to sound out if the access road is a potential banana skin or not.

Good point Sugared-frog, thanks. There's plenty of room between the houses so a large single lane wouldnt be a problem but does it have to be the wide enough for two vehicles at any point

Does anyone know if this is a highways agency question on the access road or local plannning office?

Also there is a green BT box on the grass verge which will need to be relocated, would BT be willing to do this and if so would the cost be on me?

Thanks again

violettasomerset

There is a document called Manual for Streets which gives the current guidance for residential road design.

2.75m is the recommended width for one vehicle, 4.1m will allow two cars to pass for public roads, but as this will potentially be just a private driveway it may not be necessary to stick to these widths. I would suggest that if a car wanting to pull into the driveway would be able to see a car coming out, then it would be OK to have the narrower width, but if they wouldn't be able to see along the length (due to a bend, say) then a wider route, or passing places, might be beneficial. If it's a single house then this wouldn't be necessary.

MfS suggests that residents should not be required to carry waste over 30m to the storage point, and that waste collection vehicles should be able to get within 25m of the storage point (this probably applies more to new housing estates than individual houses though). In other words, depending on the distances, the bin lorry may not even need to come down the driveway - let's face it, there's plenty of places where people have a really long driveway to take the bins down, and they manage.

I doubt you would really need "swing room" for one or two houses, where there were no large vehicles using it. Cars can get out onto a narrow road without needing "swing room". Manual for Streets 2 (the follow on document to MfS) states that in many cases it will be acceptable that larger vehicles (e.g. bin lorries) occasionally cross into the opposing lane - so as long as the residential road which your new driveway will lead onto isn't really narrow, even then "swing room" shouldn't be needed.

You would need to speak to the highways development planning department at the county council (or borough council, if it's unitary) regarding the details of the access - some councils may charge for this.