Can't Park on my own Drive!!

[TwinkleTwinkleLittleCat]

Let me set the scene, we are a 2 car family, car parking on the street is awful. One side of the road is mainly double yellow lines and most houses have 2 or 3 cars.
We are terraced houses but each have a front driveway and garden.
Half our driveway has a dropped kerb so one car can easily get on the drive.
The other car (mine) can also fit in the front, but I use rubber ramps to get up the kerb. Have done this for 20 years .
Today I had a letter from the council telling me I should not park on my own drive as I am damaging the kerb every time I go over it, and the ramps cannot be used as they might harm another vehicle.
I'm fuming!

You can park on your drive just not drive across the highway (pavement) to it.
Either access via dropped kerb or pay to extend dropped kerb.
You are damaging the pavement it’s not designed to be driven on by a car.
They usually take photos and send letter/s then refer to legal to serve notice under S184 Highways Act 1989. Don’t ignore.

So you obviously didn't read the highway code when you got your licence.

Pavements are for people not for cars to drive over, and dropped kerbs are strengthened in anticipation of this.

It always amuses me when people are upset that they are caught breaking the law, and their excuse is I've been doing it for ages it's a stupid defence.

@pinguins our council do build the dropped kerbs! The highways dept of the council build them and charge £1400-£1700
There is one other company they let you use which isn't much cheaper.

My council/whoever put a lamppost at the end of my neighbours "drive". She now can't access her actual drive if there is someone parked opposite.

Well now you know

Same with my local council. I've got approval for my kerb to be dropped, just waiting for someone to do the actual drive and then I'll go back to the council to arrange the drop kerb. They've introduced school streets so the residents of neighbouring roads are all getting extra drop kerbs.

That’s cheaper than ours. It’s £240 fee and must use approved contractor estimated costs £2000 to £3500 for us.

Highways Act 1980

Uh oh. I have exactly the same set up (except I don't use rubber ramps) and the council has just resurfaced our road. I'm guessing I'm going to get a letter soon!

Yes I must be naive, obviously I know you can't park your car on the pavements! Although many do around here, council don't seem to do anything about them.
But yes now I know and will use the dropped kerb to diagonally get on the drive. But, will the council dispute that I can do this now I'm on their radar?
I've removed the ramps.

We have talked about getting it extended before, but there's always something else the money is needed for. We haven't got spare money hanging around sadly.

Well it sounds like you can get on and off via the driveway and using the ramps, although convenient isn’t vital. It sounds like you can access 2 spots in your garden, so actually extending it isn’t urgent, even to have 2 spaces for parking. It just means a bit if shunting cars around to get them in the right place and especially for getting the right one out in the morning….a. It inconvenient but not the end of the world.

Another option could be to reduce down to being a one car family?

Two wrongs don't make a right. What you were doing is pretty common but it's not allowed.

If you are not thinking of moving any time soon just pay and have the kerb dropped love the cost is never going to go down and they are obviously not just targetting you so they will be checking the street out

This. You should have a proper dropped kerb.

I'm a bit dubious about the suggestion that pavements are not strong enough for cars to drive over, considering how many driver pull halfway on to the pavement, without falling through. Even the idea that your car will damage the edge pieces - they're made of solid concrete, so I'd have thought your tyres would be wrecked long long before the concrete blocks would sustain any damage.

Unless the council put up bollards to stop you, it's obviously more of a faff, but you could always get some much lighter plastic/wooden ramps to keep in your car or inside your fence and then place them there to drive over the pavement and then take them away again. Probably not legal, of course, and without the existing big heavy ramps there permanently to 'save your space' on the road (for access), there's no guarantee that somebody won't already have parked there.

I also don't see how you aren't taking away a potential parking space in the road, though, as this is exactly what a drive does by its very nature: you can't reserve a parking space in the road, but you can reserve that very same space with which to access your drive, if you have one.

its not the damaging of the pavement but the pipes etc underneath.

I'd count yourself lucky you've gotten away with it for so long and now look at sorting the dropped kerb. If lots of other residents park in a similar manner it's highly likely the council have had a purge and warned them too. Might even be drumming up some business for themselves? If you're feeling aggrieved about the state of the roads put in a complaint.

I also think this might be a downside of a positive, if the council have (finally) identified your terribly damaged road for re-surfacing and thus, on surveying it before the work, have realised that there are loads of DIY ramps that will prevent them from being able to do it - or regularly maintaining it. All of your neighbours doing the same will have received letters as well.

its not the damaging of the pavement but the pipes etc underneath.

Surely those are a fair distance down? Just the weight of the slabs themselves (plus concrete/hardcore below) is immense, not to mention the people regularly half-parking over it; I'm amazed if the councils/utility companies are banking on people never parking on there, or even pulling on to get by in narrow streets, and have thus not over-engineered it to some extent.

I’d just use the dropped kerb as you suggested and go across diagonally but will be a pain if your partner home first. Money making scheme from the council IMO, the tarmac pavement is replaced with the exact same spec as what they have dug up so the dropped kerb may be strengthened but the tarmac/asphalt that they dig out & re lay certainly isn’t.

@whenwhathow that's what I thought. Yes the kerb will be dropped but the pavement isn't strengthened. Our pavements are just spray coated with black ?tar.
Plenty of people round here have 2 wheels on the pavement which then causes problems for wheelchairs, prams etc.

This is what all the kerbs in my area are like....

How would a dropped kerb make a difference to that?