Oh dear! Just had visit from council officer about not having dropped kerb...

Debt_Free_Chick

Unfortunately, it is unlawful for you to drive onto the front of the property without a dropped kerb. The dropping of the kerb serves two purposes.

Firstly, there is the matter of physical access to the space in front of the house - dropping the kerb facilitates this so that you don't have to "bump" the car over the kerb.

More importantly, however - without the dropped kerb you have no right to cross the pavement/verge with a vehicle. The pavement/verge and road belongs to the Council. You need a "licence" or permission to cross the pavement/verge in a vehicle.

So, you are committing some kind of offence (although I think it's a tort i.e. civil law rather than a crime i.e. criminal law) if you do not have the relevant permission (licence) to drive a vehicle across the pavement/verge. And JimmyTheWig has a point too.

Councils are not out to make money. If they do, anything they make goes into local services and/or towards next year's budget for Council Tax. I only mention this as it's unlikely that the Council are simply charging money for nothing. They are more likely to be passing on to you their direct costs of providing a service not covered by their budget - they wouldn't budget for the cost of dropping the kerb for everyone, if it's optional and only a choice exercised by a few. Anyway, if they did budget for it, your Council Tax would be higher - and so would everyone elses.

Just trying to explain (or, if you like, justify) why "it is what it is".

LillyJ

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

I would have thought that it would. I would certainly rather a house with a drive than without. If we had the money we'd get ours done. Estate agents always advertise "off street parking" where a property has a drive as being a good thing. It makes your car insurance cheaper.

But I believe that the official figures show that having a drive actually reduces the value of a house.

Ours actually already has off street parking and a garage round the back already and it is much more secure than the front due to the gates to the alleyway. I just would rather have something out the front as well to give the option. About half our street have done this. You can park on the street on one side as well and it isn't like there is a shortage of parking as it is a very quiet road, it is just nice to have space on your own drive.
Why does it reduce the value?! I would do it if it didn't make any difference to the value but not if it dropped the value!

We are moving out of rented with a double drive so I think we are going to miss it a bit!

LillyJ

Debt_Free_Chick wrote: »

Unfortunately, it is unlawful for you to drive onto the front of the property without a dropped kerb. The dropping of the kerb serves two purposes.

Firstly, there is the matter of physical access to the space in front of the house - dropping the kerb facilitates this so that you don't have to "bump" the car over the kerb.

More importantly, however - without the dropped kerb you have no right to cross the pavement/verge with a vehicle. The pavement/verge and road belongs to the Council. You need a "licence" or permission to cross the pavement/verge in a vehicle.

So, you are committing some kind of offence (although I think it's a tort i.e. civil law rather than a crime i.e. criminal law) if you do not have the relevant permission (licence) to drive a vehicle across the pavement/verge. And JimmyTheWig has a point too.

Councils are not out to make money. If they do, anything they make goes into local services and/or towards next year's budget for Council Tax. I only mention this as it's unlikely that the Council are simply charging money for nothing. They are more likely to be passing on to you their direct costs of providing a service not covered by their budget - they wouldn't budget for the cost of dropping the kerb for everyone, if it's optional and only a choice exercised by a few. Anyway, if they did budget for it, your Council Tax would be higher - and so would everyone elses.

Just trying to explain (or, if you like, justify) why "it is what it is".

Annoying then, that there is such variation between what different councils charge if they are just recouping costs?

Riq

~Beanie~ wrote: »

The council can put bollards up in front of your 'drive' and in fact have even done it when a car has been on the drive, blocking it in!

See this artice from the Dailty Mail: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=524838&in_page_id=1770

Mr Beckford, who lives at his parents' £350,000 house in Willesden, Brent,

Surely that house is not worth £350k?!

kazwookie

An ex boyfriend of mine, droppped his own kerb, bought all the right materials etc.

Along comes chap from council, knocks on door and asks him why he did it, he told him to get his car on to the drive.

Chap from council gives him a week to put it back to how it was or he would take him to court and charge him.

Chap from council came back a week later to check it had all been put back to how it was, (and it was) then told ex/ gave ex some forms to have the work carried out by the council. (don't remember what the charge was) ex fill in forms, about 2 weeks later workers from council turned up carried out work!!!!!!!!

Generali

The reason you have to get it done properly is that the new bit of pavement has to support the weight of the car rather than just a load of fat pedestrians. If the pavement gets damaged and someone is hurt or damages their property then the council is liable.

zebulon

LillyJ wrote: »

Annoying then, that there is such variation between what different councils charge if they are just recouping costs?

yeah, i think that's the problem!!

Ellie007

I have absolutely no problem in getting it done, although I was hoping it would go unnoticed :rolleyes:.

What is frustrating is firstly having to pay £80 for someone to come out and give me an estimate, and secondly that unlike many other councils, mine does not give me the opportunity to get quotes from a selection of approved contractors. As LillyJ rightly says, if it is simply a case of recouping costs then some councils would not be charging £400 whilst others appear to be charging anything up to £3k, according to other posters.

My main concern though is that we will be refused the dropped kerb. Most of my neighbours have them, and most have smaller frontage than us, but the council have said that they dislike people turning their fronts into parking because they want to try and keep the borough more 'green' (although I suspect that horse bolted a long time ago!) However we did buy the house with it already converted to hard standing so hopefully that stands in our favour. If it is refused though, we will have a major problem with parking.

Many thanks for everyones opinions!

PasturesNew

Riq wrote: »

Mr Beckford, who lives at his parents' £350,000 house in Willesden, Brent,

Surely that house is not worth £350k?!

The story covers a few different instances.
The photo is some tenant who rents the HMO with the bollards and owns the car trapped.

The gentleman living at his parents' house is an entirely different person.

However, Willesden 3-bed houses start at £269k and this one's for sale at £350k http://www.rightmove.co.uk/viewdetails-17252227.rsp?pa_n=1&tr_t=buy which is equally uninspiring to look at.

fimonkey

Well here's my rant about the proliferation of front gardens into driveways.......

1. The amount of concrete now taking up front gardens instead of grass and soil is contributing to flash floods, cos the rain water has no-where to soak into and therefore runs off into drains and over flows etc.

2. When you're not using your driveway, no-one else can use it, and neither can they park outside your house blocking the driveway, Hence you've effectively taken a parking space away from someone else so you don;t have to walk a few hundred metres more to your door and you can see your precious piece of metal outside your window.

3. Concrete front gardens are ugly and are contributing to a decline in Britains wildlife.

I know I'm goinmg to ruffle a few feathers with those comments, but to back up my second point, a friend of mine lives in a flat in Muswell Hill. She HAS to park on the sorrounding roads, but this is getting harder and harder as ppl convert their front gardens to driveways. As they have a dropped kerb and white line in front of them she cannot park there, even if there is no car in the driveway. Hence the selfishness of the few has made life difficult for the majority of residents and shoppers in the area, and has subsequently had an effect on local businesses.

I know this doesn't pertain to everyone, but it is indicative of the 'I'm alright I'm looking after number one' attitude that pervades through today's society.

I also know this probably isn't the right place for this rant as it doesn't help the OP, but so what, it's a forum, and I wanted to rant and I stand by my views.