Build drive on council owned verge?

ftb_deena

My new property has a large council owned verge directly outside of it (and along the entire road of houses). Some properties have strip concrete drive from the path, over the verge and to the house.

A previous owner has had planning permission approved for a similar driveway and dropped kerb to be installed. Do I need to purchase the land from the council first, or simply get permission to install a drive and dropped kerb?

I hope this image helps! My house is on the right (where white car is parked), I would like a driveway like the one on left!

housebuyer143

I imagine how will need to purchase the land. Contact the council for either permission or to enquire about buying it. 

loubel

I doubt the Council would let you install the drive on their land. I expect you will need to buy the land and obtain planning permission (& potentially building regulations) consent. Have you asked the neighbour what they had to do?

Bigphil1474

Have you checked your deeds? The houses look ex council, so maybe the land came with the house. It might be that the drive was fitted by the council when they were council houses (assuming they were). 

LightFlare

I'm not convinced there is enough space to the side of your house for a car width driveway without encroaching on the next doors land

Section62

ftb_deena said:

My new property has a large council owned verge directly outside of it (and along the entire road of houses). Some properties have strip concrete drive from the path, over the verge and to the house.

A previous owner has had planning permission approved for a similar driveway and dropped kerb to be installed. Do I need to purchase the land from the council first, or simply get permission to install a drive and dropped kerb?

I hope this image helps! My house is on the right (where white car is parked), I would like a driveway like the one on left!

You first need to find out where the highway boundary is.  The wide verge could be highway, or it could be housing or recreation land.

If the land you need to park on is highway land then the council would need to make a stopping up order in order to give you exclusive rights to park on it (either by then leasing or selling you the land).  If you don't have (legal) exclusive use of the land, particularly if it is highway, then anyone else could park there and there would be nothing you could do about it.

The council cannot give you exclusive rights to use highway land.

You would need the council's higways department to give permission for the kerb to be dropped and as much of the verge as is highway to be paved to form an access to your driveway (they would probably want to do that work themselves)

The rules on planning consent are complicated in a situation like this.  Can you confirm whether the consent already given is for this property, and what exactly was the consent for?

I can also see the council being reluctant to agree this if they see how the other neighbour is using the neighbour's driveway to park on the grass (the blue car) - they would probably anticipate your neighbour to the right doing the same if you got a driveway, so that may make it more difficult to get approval.

bluelad1927

LightFlare said:

I'm not convinced there is enough space to the side of your house for a car width driveway without encroaching on the next doors land

I might have missed something but I can't see where the OP says they want a driveway to the side. The neighbours driveway is directly in front of the house and not to the side.

YoungBlueEyes

I’m not seeing any driveway at all. I see a fat (foot?)path and a blue car parked on the grass…

BlueVeranda

YoungBlueEyes said:

I’m not seeing any driveway at all. I see a fat (foot?)path and a blue car parked on the grass…

I did wonder if that path was wide enough to count as a driveway or if it's street view making it look narrower on the pic. It also looks like someone further down has parked next to their house, but we can't see how they got there from this image.

sheramber

Does the house on the left use the drive shown on the picture?  There doesn't seem to be anywhere to park a car.

35har1old

LightFlare said:

I'm not convinced there is enough space to the side of your house for a car width driveway without encroaching on the next doors land

I don't think the OP was suggesting that he was going to use the side of the house he said he wanted one like his  neighbour which approaches the front door