Grass verge between driveway and road

nica25

I've just moved in to a house, it has a driveway the width of the house but quite a narrow dropped kerb with a small opening onto the driveway, and the driveway isn't very deep. This means you can only park a small-medium car straight-on in front of the house and you don't have the space to then drive another car in to the other side of the driveway as there is a wall from the edge of the property to the opening, and between that wall and the road is a council-owned grass verge. It wouldn't be too tricky to just take down the small wall (it's our wall) and widen the opening but then the grass verge would be abutting right up to our drive (rather than the dividing wall) and we would need to drive slightly over the corner of the verge to access the other side of the driveway because the original car takes up the whole space from front of house to the pavement. The dropped kerb doesn't need to be changed - can the council remove the grass verge if asked (and we pay a fee)? Or are we basically stuck as the whole road has these grass verges and they are part of the road? Everyone else on the road either doesn't have a driveway at all and parks on the road, or has wider access to their drive so then have a wall between driveway and verge where there isn't a dropped kerb. The road is quite busy with cars parked either side so it would alleviate pressure on the road/pressure on us to find space for our second car!

Thanks!

nica25

Just realised I can post a photo - so here's the driveway. The overgrown mess is our wall which we would remove and finish off the driveway, behind that covered in snow is the grass verge.  You can see the narrow opening from the dropped kerb and how because of the car already parked on the drive, we'd likely need to drive across the verge.  Would the council remove this if asked?

nica25

Here's the photo (tech has gotten the best of me here):

seradane

Can you not just "parallel park" the first car into the left side of the driveway before pulling the second car in? Does require a tad more shuffling but doesn't involve works to the verge.

Irishpearce26

That's doesn't look like just a grass verge, you have trees and a difference in landscape. Firstly the trees could be protected, secondly this would be pretty costly to do, thirdly if they do it for you every Tom, !!!!!! and Harry will want it so I think it will be a no from the council.

Seashell517

Are those trees 'yours' or the councils? Usually any requests to go anything that would involve in the loss of the trees, or getting too close to them, wouldn't be entertained. As a first point, I would check the council website for info on drop kerbs and driveways. The property over the road looks to have a full width driveway and drop kerb?

AdrianC

Irishpearce26 said:

That's doesn't look like just a grass verge, you have trees and a difference in landscape. Firstly the trees could be protected, secondly this would be pretty costly to do, thirdly if they do it for you every Tom, !!!!!! and Harry will want it so I think it will be a no from the council.

Even if it isn't, a "yes" will come with a very large bill. After all, it has to be done by an approved contractor under licence from the landowner of that strip...

leonj

That dropped kerb doesn't even look wide enough for a driveway

Slinky

The one across the road could be a red herring - it may have been installed before current legislation. We looked into widening our dropped kerb but found they wouldn't do it because it is fairly close to the end of the neighbour's dropped kerb. IIRC 4 meters was they key measurement in my area.

Soot2006

If it is REALLY just a question of occasionally driving over a corner of grass verge, I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just remove the wall and see how it works in reality.  And apply to have the dropped kerb lengthened as your neighbour's cars will become a problem if you're pulling in/out at angles. 

HampshireH

That's a pretty established piece of land.

However the little wall looks quite far in compared to the other side. Does the wall denote your boundary or does your boundary sit in that bushy bit or Infront of it.

Maybe it's my eyes but it doesn't look like a bit of grass it looks like a bushy area which if all yours and removed would give a lot more space. What's the view from the other side where the grass actually is?