Had Drop Kerb done without planning permission

Ezzbis2023

Hi all, I'm in really terrible situation, I bought a house in 2024 all my neighbours had dropped kerb except mine, I applied to council to get one done in March 2024 but never had a response (Somehow I missed the response in email) . The permission wasn't granted due to dept of the carriageway being 5 meter where only 3m was allowed, although all my neighbours have the same dept due to grass verge. There was not any actual grass on the verge, it was dead rough area, i had the drop kerb done without further applications to the council. I am worried if they find out what will be the worst case scenario, I paid almost £2k to get it done, will they fine me or ask me to put in back costing me potentially another £2k if that happens? for clarification, there is no health & safety risk, no damage to pathway, no street light, no traffic light junction around, all clean space with no water drain etc. Quite tensed now. any advice will help. I am based in South Glous Bristol. 

silvercar

I'd be inclined to keep quiet. If a neighbour was going to report you they would have done so by now. 

If it ever comes to light you could apply for retrospective permission, by which time it would have been in place for many years and you could use the fact your neighbours have one to back up your application.

Section62

Ezzbis2023 said:

Hi all, I'm in really terrible situation, I bought a house in 2024 all my neighbours had dropped kerb except mine, I applied to council to get one done in March 2024 but never had a response (Somehow I missed the response in email) . The permission wasn't granted due to dept of the carriageway being 5 meter where only 3m was allowed, although all my neighbours have the same dept due to grass verge. There was not any actual grass on the verge, it was dead rough area, i had the drop kerb done without further applications to the council. I am worried if they find out what will be the worst case scenario, I paid almost £2k to get it done, will they fine me or ask me to put in back costing me potentially another £2k if that happens? for clarification, there is no health & safety risk, no damage to pathway, no street light, no traffic light junction around, all clean space with no water drain etc. Quite tensed now. any advice will help. I am based in South Glous Bristol. 

Worst case is they reinstate the kerb, verge and footway, and send you the bill for the work.

You say "I applied to council to get one done in March 2024 but never had a response (Somehow I missed the response in email) ." - can you explain what this means?  Did you get a response which you didn't see, or did the council not respond at all?  How have you found out the request was refused?

Can you also explain what you mean by "due to dept of the carriageway being 5 meter where only 3m was allowed "?  Do you mean the length of dropped kerb you wanted? I.e. the width of the driveway?

Ezzbis2023

Hi I did not see the response in march 2024 when I applied one, but after completing the work I scrolled through my emails to look for the application I made in case they ask,  I found their email arrived 2 weeks later with the decision being refused with following notes:

''Refused due to the depth from the carriageway to the property. This should not be more than 3m. The distance

measures 5.2m.''

All my neighbours have same depth I don't know why they caused an issue for mine.

inthedepthsofthesea

I agree with silvercar, what's done is now done and you can't change that. Unless you live on a main A or B road, and your contractors have done a good job, then there's little chance of either your neighbours or the council minding.

Ezzbis2023

inthedepthsofthesea said:

I agree with silvercar, what's done is now done and you can't change that. Unless you live on a main A or B road, and your contractors have done a good job, then there's little chance of either your neighbours or the council minding.

I checked online and apparently my road is a ''C'' Category. 

eddddy

I guess the time it might become an issue is when you eventually sell the house... You'll almost certainly have to answer questions like this:




If you declare the "dropped kerb without all necessary consents" to the prospective buyer - I'm not sure that's something that a buyer could get indemnity insurance for. So a mortgage lender and/or buyer might not want to proceed because of that.


If you don't declare it to a prospective buyer, and the council eventually find out and reinstate the kerb (and maybe put a bollard to prevent cars driving over the pavement) - the buyer might try to sue you for misrepresentation. i.e. damages for loss of value resulting from the loss of off-street parking.


Or maybe you could side-step the issue by doing something like... before selling, put a fence in front of the parking space to make the parking space look like a patio or paved front garden, and never claim to a prospective buyer that any off-street parking exists.

WIAWSNB

Can anyone explain the council's reasoning? Their driveway is too long?! Surely not.
Anyhoo, as said by others - keep schtum.
How long do you expect to remain at your property? Regardless, when you come to sell, then declare honestly, and offer an indemnity policy.
Do not contact the council; unless they made an actual mistake in their refusal, they will most likely restore it to how it was, but in any case an indemnity policy could be made ineffective.
Could you explain the layout as best you can, please, ideally with an anonymised deeds plan, or even hand-drawn - traced - from Google maps? Folk on here might be able to work out the possible reason for refusal, and therefore whether it's challengeable.

Bigphil1474

It sounds like he means that the distance from the kerb to his property is 5m but the council don't allow that distance to be more than 3m. I can think of plenty of properties in my area which have a distance greater than 3m from kerb to property so maybe it is a local rule?

Section62

WIAWSNB said:

Can anyone explain the council's reasoning? Their driveway is too long?! Surely not.

It is possible a council would specify a maximum length of driveway to try to keep the amount of front garden surfaced over to a minimum, but 3m is not enough to park a car on.  There's something wrong here, as the South Gloucestershire council policy is for a minimum of 5.5m depth from edge of highway to front wall (for a classified road).

WIAWSNB said:

Anyhoo, as said by others - keep schtum.

Not sure that is a policy which will work long-term. It appears the OP has a planning breach as well as not having the consent of the highway authority.  Unless they revert the crossover back to how it was (which itself would be unlawful unless the council gives permission) then a buyer is going to expect to be able to park on the driveway and given some of the threads on the forum recently about solicitors being picky over paperwork it seems the OP would be incredibly lucky if their future buyer's solicitor didn't query this.

Also, all the councils I worked for/with had a policy of periodically visiting locations of refused/not proceeded applications for crossovers to see whether the property owner had gone ahead anyway.  The OP might get lucky, and their council might be more relaxed.... although that doesn't seem probable given their refusal for some unclear reason.

The OP needs to get some clarification of why the crossover was refused - either by sharing a redacted copy of the email with us (in case there is more info/misinterpretation)... or by asking the email's sender (with the risks that brings).

Section62

Bigphil1474 said:

It sounds like he means that the distance from the kerb to his property is 5m but the council don't allow that distance to be more than 3m. I can think of plenty of properties in my area which have a distance greater than 3m from kerb to property so maybe it is a local rule?

It looks like it could be that, their policy says "If a pavement and grass verge combined depth is more than 3 meters, the request will be refused. This mitigates unauthorised parking and obstruction of the pavement/verge."

IANAL, but there's no legal basis for them imposing that rule, it isn't a relevant consideration under Section 184.  But that doesn't help the OP unless they feel like legally challenging the council.