How much is a private driveway worth?

MobileSaver

lookstraightahead said:

I really find the whole issue of having a driveway a bit old fashioned. You don't 'need' a driveway as a general rule. It's a bit like having a bath in the bathroom. Some  want one, others don't really see the point.

You don't 'need' an indoor toilet or central heating but given the choice few people would go without either as the benefits are obvious and tangible.

The vast majority of people will see the same in a driveway; the OP may not drive but their friends and family almost certainly will, as will delivery drivers and likely most prospective buyers when they come to sell.

MobileSaver

GDB2222 said:

[Deleted User] said:

lookstraightahead said:

With so many people living in flats etc, the whole electric car thing will be sorted. You won't need a driveway to charge a car, in the same way as you don't need a stable to keep your horse and cart, or a huge room to keep your videos in. Or a tank for your water. Or a meeting room for a staff meeting. Or a floppy disk. Etc. Space needs to be utilised in a better way so driveways will feel really old fashioned in the future, and a waste of space/resource.

Look at the parking situation. It's Mad Max in many parts of the country. Far from being sorted, it's actually getting worse.

Between 2000 and 2020, the number of cars on the road in the uk went up 20%. That trend may change if car pooling becomes more widespread, but there’s no sign of it yet. In the meantime, I guess, parking issues will get worse, not better.

Typically car pooling involves sharing the journey, not the car, so the number of privately-owned cars wouldn't change. Fuel and wear and tear are shared but each party still needs a car which then needs to be stored/charged/cleaned somewhere such as a driveway.

mi-key

Where my friend lives, each terraced house is issued one parking permit. It's an area a lot of students and families live, so lots of the houses have 3 or 4 cars. When I have visited I have often had to park 4 streets away as its the closest you can find a permit free space.  In that sort of situation having a driveway is definitely a bonus. Not only can you park one or two cars on it, you can also park across the end as nobody else can park there and block you in. 

GDB2222

@Section62 has raised interesting issues. I certainly hope that we don’t end up paving paradise and putting up a parking lot. With practically one car for every two people in the country, including children, we are probably reaching a point where we don’t actually need any more.   

What might make sense would be allocating parking spaces outside homes to the home owner (with a large fee to the council, of course). That would enable a suitable electric hook up to be installed under the pavement, which would enable the car battery to be used for home electrical storage. 

We could put the vehicle excise duty up to discourage unnecessary car ownership and encourage car sharing or hiring services.

So, there are social ways round the issue, which curtail car ownership and make better use of the available parking space.

GDB2222

MobileSaver said:

GDB2222 said:

[Deleted User] said:

lookstraightahead said:

With so many people living in flats etc, the whole electric car thing will be sorted. You won't need a driveway to charge a car, in the same way as you don't need a stable to keep your horse and cart, or a huge room to keep your videos in. Or a tank for your water. Or a meeting room for a staff meeting. Or a floppy disk. Etc. Space needs to be utilised in a better way so driveways will feel really old fashioned in the future, and a waste of space/resource.

Look at the parking situation. It's Mad Max in many parts of the country. Far from being sorted, it's actually getting worse.

Between 2000 and 2020, the number of cars on the road in the uk went up 20%. That trend may change if car pooling becomes more widespread, but there’s no sign of it yet. In the meantime, I guess, parking issues will get worse, not better.

Typically car pooling involves sharing the journey, not the car, so the number of privately-owned cars wouldn't change. Fuel and wear and tear are shared but each party still needs a car which then needs to be stored/charged/cleaned somewhere such as a driveway.

Where we are, in London, there are services like ZipCar, which is essentially short term car hire. I’m not sure how to describe it, but maybe car pooling was misleading.

We barely use our car, so if there were lots of these hire cars around we would seriously consider giving up our car entirely. 

Martico

 Battery swapping systems are another potential solution. It'd require some standardisation of batteries, but has potential to obviate the need for home charging, as well as to ensure that the bulk of recharging is done at times of lower overall demand

Section62

tooldle said:

You'll notice that i did not mention 'on street parking' in my comment. Solutions are tailored to the local environment. Part of the solution is letting go of the idea of travel necessitating car ownership.

Yes, many years ago I was involved in doing just that.  For example encouraging companies to set up green travel plans, or imposing maximum parking standards in development to discourage car ownership and use. At a national level, the fuel duty escalator and changes to VED were applied to do a similar thing.

The problem is it doesn't work.  Many people want to travel by private vehicle.  Some people need to travel by private vehicle.  The implications involved in the loaded words "letting go" was (and still is) part of the problem.

Looking back with hindsight I can see a lot of the things we did having had a negative overall outcome.  For example the encouragement of diesel engines vs petrol being an obvious one, the maximum parking standards in residential development being another.  On the housing estates where we demanded the developer didn't provide adequate parking we are seeing the same problems as the streets built in the 1930's (and earlier) where parking provision wasn't thought necessary.

Lots of people can achieve all their travel needs without owning a car.  Nobody would dispute that.  But the circumstances where that is possible are relatively niche and primarily concentrated in densely developed areas of towns and cities.

Then Covid came along.  It will be a long time before the national psyche forgets that having access to a private motor vehicle made so much difference to what you could do when the public transport system became a virtual no-go zone.

Your post I replied to said "Provisioning of charging points for electric cars is definitely being worked out. Councils are on it both with identifying residential areas that will need points installing and in some cases preparatory works already started.".  My reply was about on-street parking because that is the area in which local authorities have the greatest ability to make a difference.  It, along with public off-street parking, is what I assumed you were talking about when you made the comment just quoted.

Would I buy a property without off-street parking or the potential to create it?  No.  Not because I expect to always own a car, but because the provision of a private space with street access is so useful for many other things - some of which (such as skips and trader/visitor parking) have already been mentioned in the thread.

Would I pay more for a property that has the capability of providing private off-street parking?  Absolutely.

Section62

GDB2222 said:

What might make sense would be allocating parking spaces outside homes to the home owner (with a large fee to the council, of course). That would enable a suitable electric hook up to be installed under the pavement, which would enable the car battery to be used for home electrical storage. 

There are a whole load of legal problems to be resolved before this takes off.  Electricity and the outdoor environment don't mix well.  Neither do trailing cables and people with partial sight.

Some councils are charging ahead with installing (or allowing) EV equipment in the public realm.  I think so far they have been lucky that the numbers are still relatively low so the probability of accidents isn't enough to be seen as a major issue.  But when the seven-figure compensation payouts start because people have tripped on an EV charging cable, or worse, suffered an electric shock from faulty equipment, then there will have to be some adjustment either in what the councils do (or allow), or a change in the law.

As it stands, the domestic supply of electricity is meant to be contained within the curtilage of the supplied property.  If the installation is to extend outside the curtilage into a puplic space to connect with a kerbside charging point, then who is responsibile for ensuring that point and the underground cable is safe?  And how much will it cost them to ensure that?

diystarter7

Hi OP
Having looked at the map and your reasoning and if you want to be more attractive to the majority of buyers, its drive way all day long,  Not just you parking and taking shopping in leaving doors open boot open but when you get friends, workers visiting, skip hire much easier all round

Thnaks

YoungBlueEyes

Driveway for me too. You're better looking at it than for it.

You can sort internal layout to create something you really want, given enough time and money. And no, I would not be asking for money off for the lack of a driveway. It's already cheaper than the similar house with a drive so I'd say it's already been taken into account. 

Driveways aren't just for cars. I used to work with a guy who had a big drive at the front of his house, but didn't drive. It was south facing, so every summer he threw down a load of sand and created his own private 'beach' with a little pool and everything! You don't have to drive to make use of a drive