Buying grass verge

Wartin

Hi all.
I'm hoping somebody might be able to give me a bit of advice. Were looking at buying a bungalow in norfolk, it has a single narrow concrete driveway which is about 2.5m wide which leads to the road. Between the bungalow boundary and the road there is a strip of grass about 2.5 metres wide that goes nearly all the way around the plot that I'm told is owned by the council. The driveway crosses this piece of grass to get to the road. What we would like to do is widen the driveway so we can get 2 cars side by side on the drive, most of the driveway is inside the property boundary but I would like to use a small bit of the grass verge to widen the driveway for easier access to the property. We wouldnt need any extra dropped kerbs just an extra bit of drive coming out from the kerb widening into the boundary, in total probably an extra 5 square metres, this would make a huge difference as we would then be able to get 3 cars on the drive inside the boundary instead of 1.

Also is parking allowed on a grass verge around the property, there are no yellow lines on the road next to the verge and no signs saying you cant and the footpath is on the opposite side of the road. You can see tyre Mark's on the grass verge. We may have to park a car on it while we sort out the driveway

Any help or advice would be great. Thanks

sevenhills

It is not an offence to park a motor vehicle, with the exemption of a HGV, on a grass verg.

Shaun_of_the_Dead

sevenhills wrote: »

It is not an offence to park a motor vehicle, with the exemption of a HGV, on a grass verg.

It is if there's a bylaw prohibiting it.

Undervalued

sevenhills wrote: »

It is not an offence to park a motor vehicle, with the exemption of a HGV, on a grass verg.

In the absence of a bylaw it is not a parking offence, however......

Parking on any part of the footway, even one wheel, is an offence in Greater London and in some other areas with bylaws.

It is however an offence anywhere to drive a vehicle on the footway / verge. Highways Act 1832 Sec 72 from memory!

Not often enforced as it is a moving traffic offence, rather than a parking one and needs the powers of a constable. Can be fined up to £1000 and get three points on your licence (from memory)!

Also an offence to cause damage to the highway, as it is to obstruct the footway to the extent that, for example, a pram or wheelchair can't get past without going on the road.

Undervalued

Wartin wrote: »

Hi all.
I'm hoping somebody might be able to give me a bit of advice. Were looking at buying a bungalow in norfolk, it has a single narrow concrete driveway which is about 2.5m wide which leads to the road. Between the bungalow boundary and the road there is a strip of grass about 2.5 metres wide that goes nearly all the way around the plot that I'm told is owned by the council. The driveway crosses this piece of grass to get to the road. What we would like to do is widen the driveway so we can get 2 cars side by side on the drive, most of the driveway is inside the property boundary but I would like to use a small bit of the grass verge to widen the driveway for easier access to the property. We wouldnt need any extra dropped kerbs just an extra bit of drive coming out from the kerb widening into the boundary, in total probably an extra 5 square metres, this would make a huge difference as we would then be able to get 3 cars on the drive inside the boundary instead of 1.

Also is parking allowed on a grass verge around the property, there are no yellow lines on the road next to the verge and no signs saying you cant and the footpath is on the opposite side of the road. You can see tyre Mark's on the grass verge. We may have to park a car on it while we sort out the driveway

Any help or advice would be great. Thanks

Technically that is an offence anywhere if damage is being caused. If you do it regularly and some local doesn't like it they might be able to persuade the police to take action.

sevenhills

Undervalued wrote: »

Technically that is an offence anywhere if damage is being caused. If you do it regularly and some local doesn't like it they might be able to persuade the police to take action.

There grass verges in my locallity are horrendous(mud) at the moment, I cannot see any solution.

Undervalued

sevenhills wrote: »

There grass verges in my locallity are horrendous(mud) at the moment, I cannot see any solution.

As I say, action can be taken by a constable if he catches somebody doing it.

A lot depends on the area. In an otherwise well kept village, with one or two regular offenders, some local "worthy" can usually persuade the police to "have a quiet word in their ear". In an urban area with multiple offenders it is much harder.

Every so often there is talk of making it a simple parking offence nationally, like it is in London and a few other areas at the moment.

benson1980

We've just built a driveway from scratch for our house, including building an access crossover across a highways owned verge similar to the width that you describe. We paid around £460 for a crossover license allowing us to build on it. I don't think highways even came out to look at it. Complete rip off but did the job. Plenty of our neighbours hadn't bothered with the licence, and just cracked on. I'd imagine this is what you would need as well, to extend it, if you wanted to do it officially. It might be worth googling how wide your council/highways authority would allow in terms of crossover width but from what you describe I'd imagine you'd have no issues. Ours is about 3m across.

TELLIT01

Isn't the logical first step to speak to the council? If they own the verge they are the only people who can give permission to do anything.

dunroving

benson1980 wrote: »

We've just built a driveway from scratch for our house, including building an access crossover across a highways owned verge similar to the width that you describe. We paid around £460 for a crossover license allowing us to build on it. I don't think highways even came out to look at it. Complete rip off but did the job. Plenty of our neighbours hadn't bothered with the licence, and just cracked on. I'd imagine this is what you would need as well, to extend it, if you wanted to do it officially. It might be worth googling how wide your council/highways authority would allow in terms of crossover width but from what you describe I'd imagine you'd have no issues. Ours is about 3m across.

So, did you install a dropped kerb? I thought householders were not allowed to do this - the council has to do it (usually £1k-£2k).

Undervalued

dunroving wrote: »

So, did you install a dropped kerb? I thought householders were not allowed to do this - the council has to do it (usually £1k-£2k).

Round here you have to use one of a very short list of council approved contractors.