£2k just to get the curb dropped!

[MeowthThatsRight]

I had a builder round this morning to price up a quote for a new drive. Current drive consists of a gap in the boundary wall straight onto a very narrow road. Parking is a nightmare in our town so there’s quite often cars parked right up to the gap meaning it’s impossible to get on/ off the drive.

Where I want it moved to crosses the pavement so we’d need to get a dropped curb put in. These can only be done through the council and cost around £2k, if they need to move the road sign it would be another £1k.

Is this the normal cost? It seems ridiculously high and pretty much doubles the cost of the entire driveway.

Sounds normal. It is illegal to dtive across kerb as builder suggests and council has put things in the way of your illegal driveway if they being nasty. Not sure what the fine is for driving across the curb. Personally the cost of driving onto your driveway must be more than 2k.

See photos

Kerb. Not curb.

It takes away the ability for anyone else to park outside your house when you're not there, means the council can't charge you any usual annual park costs, and meanwhile adds to the value of your house.

At a time when councils are scrambling for any extra cash, charging for the considerable work involved in dropping a kerb seems totally reasonable to me.

Curb is an American spelling.

If you bump up a non drop kerb won't it just become damaged in time and you knacker your tyres and wheel rims? It also looks like a bodge job tbh.

Amazon drop kerb ramps would just protrude into the road....dangerous. Also where I live they'd get nicked after 1 night! 😁

Can you pay for the dropped pavement first, and at a later point improve the existing drive?

My gran had two short planks of wood which she propped up at the side of her house when not in use. When arriving you had to jump out, put the planks in place, drive on and then pick the planks up.

I had a kerb dropped in 2016 I was quoted £1800 , so £2000 3 years on sounds pretty ok to me
the firm must be on your council approved list and you must seek approval to have it done , it's the highways depart of the county council btw .
You should gain back the cost plus a bit more in property value uplift

We have a drop crib and everyone still parks those arrrgh

DH May or may not have done ours without permission, he’s in the trade and probably would’ve been the one doing the work anyway but paying £1000 to do so 🤷🏻‍♀️

Yes unfortunately we paid about that 5 years ago to get ours done.

We had to notify the local council who advised us of the cost, I explained to them I could get it done cheaper directly by someone I know is in their approved supplier list, to,which they replied that was fine but then they charge to come out after and inspect it, which would then take it above their pricing.

It's a racket, bloody councils

yabu
you don't have a drive, you have a paved garden

you don't have a drive, you have a paved garden

No, she already has a drive with a dropped kerb but wants to change the access point.

Where we are, if you don’t get the council to do it (which we were quoted the same as you) we had to get permission from the council for £100 and then could use who we liked. The council also came out to check the work after too.

It would be dangerous (not just illegal) to drive over the non-dropped kerb - pedestrians won't be expecting/looking out for cars coming from your property if the kerb is not dropped. I don't think it is unreasonable for councils to charge for the reasons already noted by other posters.

We have a relatively low kerb outside our house, just had a drivway put in. Didn't pay for the kerb because 2k isn't worth it for us. We just drive over the kerb easy enough.

About 10 years ago when the local council we’re resurfacing the pavement they wrote to residents to ask if anyone wanted their kerb dropped at about £150 per foot.

Very enterprising I thought, we said yes, they did a fab job but then never charged us!!

It is an offence under the highways act to drive over a kerb/pavement that hasn’t been made into a proper access point.

The work isn’t as simple as just making a slope - the pavement is reinforced beneath to make sure that the weight of cars crossing doesn’t break the paving slabs and to move or reinforce services below ground. As previous posters have said, it’s dangerous for cars to be crossing pavement without a defined and visible crossover.

On the previous page poster explained about utilities being moved this is one reason it can be expensive.

Also, check they will drop the kerb first before you get the drive done. The council can refuse if it limits on street parking for surrounding houses, or leaves a gap between yours and the next dropped kerb which would not allow a standard car to park, therefore rendering the space useless.

There is normally an application form on the highways page for your authority to complete for the enquiry (in any authority this costs a few £100 for them to inspect etc)

I am going through the process to get one kerb stone moved to extend my dropped kerb and am prepared for them to say no... at the end of the day council own and maintain the highways so its their decision

Sorry kerb

I don’t know if what we have at the moment is actually an ‘official’ drive. It’s just a gap in the wall. The ‘drive’ behind the gap is already road level and there’s no pavement so no kerb to drop. But it’s also pretty unusable most of the time due to the angle of it and cars parking right up to the gap.

I suppose I could pay for the dropped kerb in the right place and get another gap in the wall made. Then pay for a proper drive once I’ve got a bit more money together.

I can’t see the council resfusing - cars can’t currently park outside the gap in my wall so if I blocked off that bit it would free up another parking space. Where I want to move the drive to the road is too narrow to park on the road so not depriving anyone of a space.

I don’t know about utilities and things. Is there a way of finding out where pipes etc go?

1,500 in 2000. My council are very fond of bollards outside houses with no dropped kerb. Also parking fines for people parking across 3ft wide dropped kerb to pathways across grass verges. I chose to have an easy life and so paid.

I don’t think our council is particularly hot on whether people actually have dropped kerbs or not. The houses in my dm’s road has about 15 houses in a row that have just concreted their front garden and park on the with no dropped kerb. I wouldn’t want to risk it though. Also it’s a pretty high kerb which I can’t imagine would do my car much good.