Recently moved into house, dropped kerb application refused. What can I do?

DaftyDuck

Or move the kitchen to the front room, and unload shopping direct through the car flap you install.

Obviously best if you drive a Jaguar..

EachPenny

G_M wrote: »

The obvious solution is to build an uphill slope.

Genius!

In fact why not build two parallel slopes with a gap inbetween wide enough to walk through and then you have your own inspection ramp for doing DIY car repairs. You could even check for oil leaks under the engine from the comfort of your lounge

There is in fact an error in my maths. It assumes the retaining wall in front of the house is vertical and the sloping driveway is the hypotenuse of a triangle as lincroft1710 suggests. However, since the angle between the vertical retaining wall and the sloping drive is less than 90 degrees, it means (from the car's perspective) that the wall is not vertical and is apparently sloping with the top towards it - the wall gets 'closer' to the road as the height at which the measurement is taken increases above the surface of the drive.

That might sound complicated, but effectively it means there is some wasted space on the drive in front of the car because part of the car (e.g. the bumper) will hit the wall before the full (slope) length of the drive has been used.

Therefore the hole needs to be deeper - by roughly the same amount as the height of the furthest point forward (or back) of the car.

However, I think if you tried explaining that to the Council's highways officer their head will explode and they might just give you permission to use the drive as it is

Cakeguts

What is wrong with underground parking as in basement parking under the house? Do you think the council will allow them to build a basement to park the car in? I admit that to get the required slope the garage might actually be in the back garden with access under the house but some people have basements under their gardens too.

EachPenny

Cakeguts wrote: »

What is wrong with underground parking as in basement parking under the house? Do you think the council will allow them to build a basement to park the car in? I admit that to get the required slope the garage might actually be in the back garden with access under the house but some people have basements under their gardens too.

It comes down to the cost of constructing the basement car park and all the facilities needed to get in and out of it. It is very hard to see how the owner would ever be able to recover the cost of this in a future sale, if anything there is a risk of the house value being reduced due to the loss of front/back garden necessary to make it work.

If you were looking to buy in this posters street, would you be willing to pay any extra for the house with the basement parking compared to the house three doors down with a conventional driveway in front of the house?

There are situations where adding basement parking could add value - I know of some cases in London where this has been done. But the car being parked is normally something like a Lamborghini and the cost of construction might buy you a couple of 3 bed suburban houses

G_M

EachPenny wrote: »

It comes down to the cost of constructing the basement car park ..........

But the car being parked is normally something like a Lamborghini and the cost of construction might buy you a couple of 3 bed suburban houses

Hmmm. Lamborghini or Range Rover? The latter would need more head room so a deeper basement.

DaftyDuck

G_M wrote: »

Hmmm. Lamborghini or Range Rover? The latter would need more head room so a deeper basement.

You mean I have to choose which one I leave on the road, for the hoi polloi to smear with sticky fingerprints? No chance!

I think tunnelling under the neighbours might be necessary. It's that, or back to the Cortina.

unforeseen

G_M wrote: »

Hmmm. Lamborghini or Range Rover? The latter would need more head room so a deeper basement.

The former wouldn't be able to get over the lip of the slope without grounding since you will need something in the region of a 30° slope to get a 2.5m drop in the 4.6m you have to play with.

TBH you would need to go a lot deeper as you would need to reinforce the house foundations above it

moneyistooshorttomention

Or - going right back to the basic message - the vendor has "done one" on OP. They probably knew/should have known about the Council enforcing regulations to stop (part) pavement parking and their drive didnt qualify. Followed by they deliberately didn't let on....

HampshireH

The OP doesn't say that he was told he could do it by the vendor. Why are they responsible or am I completely missing the sarcasm (quite possible):rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

The OP wasnt told they couldnt do it by the vendor - though vendor either knew or should have known about this Council regulation and could easily have got a rule out and measured the length of their drive to see if their house would be caught out by the Council regulation.

If one sees a drive - then one assumes it can be used as a drive - but we've been told local Council regulations forbid access to drives less than a certain length and we've also been told local Council regulations forbid driving across the pavement to get to a drive there if there's no dropped kerb.