Driveway with no dropped kerb..

[MadgeHarvyy]

Does this mean it is not legally a driveway..?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Whatever the legal circumstances, if somebody is willing to designate a part of their own private property for parking and then keep their vehicle(s) on it, rather than blocking off a big space on the highway for hours/days/weeks on end and impeding the flow of traffic, by (legally) parking on it, surely that's a good thing and something to be encouraged by local councils, isn't it?

Ideally, nobody would be parking on the road near their home at all, except for those who physically have nowhere on their own property where they could possibly/practically park their vehicle.

When roads and pavements are designed they take into account parking, flow of traffic and anything that could block it.

I know because I work with engineers who design roads and parking whose plans have to be approved and meet strict guidelines by transport authorities and the council who typical own the roads. Unless its London where some roads are owned by TfL.

So your talking rubbish. On my road parking is done half on pavement and half on road as sign posted, further down where the road is wider its park on the road fully. This was designed to allow traffic to flow smoothly through thr difference in road widths and still enable people to park.

What causes traffic on my road, people queuing to get into the recycling centre. Not parking.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

Whatever the legal circumstances, if somebody is willing to designate a part of their own private property for parking and then keep their vehicle(s) on it, rather than blocking off a big space on the highway for hours/days/weeks on end and impeding the flow of traffic, by (legally) parking on it, surely that's a good thing and something to be encouraged by local councils, isn't it?

Ideally, nobody would be parking on the road near their home at all, except for those who physically have nowhere on their own property where they could possibly/practically park their vehicle.

It it doesn’t make any difference to space on the road!!! If I park outside my house on the road I am taking up a space. If I make my front garden a legally driveway then my car is no longer on the road but the space is still not usable by anyone else as I need it for access so o haven’t freed up any more parking for anyone else!

[quote cyclingmad]@itwasjustresting no I just follow the law of the land like every good citizen of this country should[/quote]
And I bet you’re great fun at parties.

@buildersteagirl

Enfield council put bollards up on the pavement blocking access to a 'parking area' on your property if you haven't got permission for a dropped curd and fail to stop cars illegally crossing the pavement. This is from their website. "If you do not apply but you have a parking area on your property, you will need to email [email protected] to tell us how you will stop vehicles from illegally crossing the pavement to your parking area after the works are done. If you do not do this, we may put up bollards outside your property to stop access. There will be a charge to have the bollards removed if you decide to apply for a dropped kerb for vehicles at a later date."

I wonder how much money they save/make from this? Because if they aren’t getting enough dropped kerb requests to get their money back it seems a massive waste of resources when councils are so stretched. In my area we are really struggling to make council /police deal with antisocial and outright illegal parking like parking on zig zags outside schools or just literally parking on pavements and blocking it completely. it’s hard to fathom how they can have the time to add extra bollards just to force people to apply for dropped kerbs.

Or maybe the threat of it is enough to motivate people?

When roads and pavements are designed they take into account parking, flow of traffic and anything that could block it.

I know because I work with engineers who design roads and parking whose plans have to be approved and meet strict guidelines by transport authorities and the council who typical own the roads. Unless its London where some roads are owned by TfL.

So your talking rubbish. On my road parking is done half on pavement and half on road as sign posted, further down where the road is wider its park on the road fully. This was designed to allow traffic to flow smoothly through thr difference in road widths and still enable people to park.

You and your engineer friends might be very smart, but you can't have travelled very far in the country at all if you've never encountered a residential road with room for traffic going in both directions, but which always has cars parked along one side, allowing traffic in only one direction at any one time. I've lived on one for nearly two decades, but I must still be wrong in believing my own eyes and experiences, eh, as I'm apparently talking rubbish....

You do realise, don't you, that there are a huge number of residential roads in this country which have been there for many, many years - long before your engineer friends (or their parents) were even born?

Even on your own engineer-designed road, it sounds very strange and nonsensical for them to have deliberately decided to put pavement along half of the section designed specifically for parking. By 'design', do you mean 'make the best of what's already there'? If so, there are tens of thousands of residential roads where there simply isn't space to allow for lots of on-street parking and free-flowing two-way traffic.

I fully realise that a great many people have nowhere else but the public road to park their cars. That's fine, but IF they didn't need to, a whole load of roads would flow much more freely.

It it doesn’t make any difference to space on the road!!!
If I park outside my house on the road I am taking up a space. If I make my front garden a legally driveway then my car is no longer on the road but the space is still not usable by anyone else as I need it for access so o haven’t freed up any more parking for anyone else!

Which is exactly what I'm saying!! IF everybody had somewhere off-road to park (and I realise that this will never be the case in real life), nobody would need to park on it, thus traffic would flow more freely. The space would indeed be usable by everybody else for the road's actual purpose!!

I agree with Weatherwarnings - the people on Enfield council responsible for this decision sound exactly like the spoilt children at nursery who would insist on taking - and often deliberately breaking - toys that they themselves didn't even want, from other children, just to stop them from having them.

Our very narrow street is a mix of dropped kerbs, "patios with aspirations" and front gardens. Several houses have more than one car (zone 3 London). Some years ago the council set a ruling that to get planning for a dropped kerb, your drive had to be at least 4m long - which does not apply to any house on our street. So anyone that didn't already have a dropped kerb before the rule change, cannot now get one.

People have been parking on their "patios with aspirations" and just illegally driving over the pavement - whatever, their choice. Until the council wrote to every house informing us they were putting in parking bays and double yellow lines. Anyone with a dropped kerb has the double yellows infront of their house. Anyone with a "patio with aspirations" has had a bay put infront of their house! Anyone in the street will be able to park in the bays so effectively the council has removed access to each of these houses. All sorts of grumbling has ensured and when the work is done i can see it's going to cause no end of arguments but as far as i can tell the council are absolutely in the right. DH and i are considering renting our drive to one of the houses that will have their "patio" blocked by the bays in the meantime!

As long as people do have sufficient space on the front of their property to park a vehicle without it hanging over the pavement (or taking forever to manoeuvre on and off) and it's a safe, practical place to do so, I just don't get the hatred some people (and councils) have for them wanting to use them.

Yes, you should have a dropped kerb installed, but we've already heard some of the prices that some councils charge. There seems to be a snobbery that people who can't afford these often outrageous prices are somehow less worthy of being allowed to use their parking area, and that it's amusing when they're thwarted - and I don't really understand why.

I'm sensing a rather smug attitude that they're 'getting above their station', when, for most of us with older houses, it's just down to luck that our houses happened to have been built with/adapted to have a dropped kerb, often many years before we ever lived there.

Yes, round here the council have started putting bollards in front of drives which don't have dropped kerbs, to prevent damage to the pavements, pipes etc.
You could see if your local council has anything on their website to report them repeatedly driving over the pavement

I work in highways for a LA. We charge £250 for a licence then if permission is granted for a dropped kerb we provide a list of 3 contractors to choose from to carry out the work.

The average cost is around £2500.

We also take action against people who don't have dropped kerbs. I don't understand to be honest why you'd want to mount the pavement with your car?

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

It's more about the fact that when someone has a patio with aspirations, that's a parking spot for everyone on the road taken away.
Many streets have a real struggle when it comes to parking and there's always a few that end up having to go down a side road or worse to find somewhere to leave their car.
Of course it will irk the neighbours then when you decide to start driving over the pavement and stopping anyone else parking in that spot in front of your house. Why on earth do you get to snag a secure spot on the street without even paying for it and the rest of the street end up struggling even more?

@Leetepp

This would be classed as a patio with aspirations not a driveway.

Best line ever 😂😂😂

We had ours done a few years back. Goes right the way across the front (3 car width) and cost £600. The council arranged for it to be done. There is probably 3ft of curb left between us and next door which people still park on so we’ve just applied for that to be done too. Cost £85 for the application. Assuming the council b]will arrange it like last tome.

It's more about the fact that when someone has a patio with aspirations, that's a parking spot for everyone on the road taken away.
Many streets have a real struggle when it comes to parking and there's always a few that end up having to go down a side road or worse to find somewhere to leave their car.

Of course it will irk the neighbours then when you decide to start driving over the pavement and stopping anyone else parking in that spot in front of your house. Why on earth do you get to snag a secure spot on the street without even paying for it and the rest of the street end up struggling even more?

So exactly the same as people who have already been lucky enough to obtain (often quite arbitrary-seeming permission) and afford a dropped kerb - or to go ahead and do it in the future - or, if we're honest, for most of us in that position, have bought a house that happens to already have it.

We have a double-width drive with a dropped kerb (not a clue who originally put it in: we've only been here approaching two decades), which means that there are two spaces unavailable for others to park that there otherwise would have been. Even if we didn't have any vehicles or otherwise preferred to leave our drive empty and park on the road ourselves (as many do, going on the many MN threads). We're very glad indeed to have it, and make daily use of it, but why are we any more deserving of permanently removing on-road parking availability from others than any other household is?

Maybe a stretch, but I think it's the parking equivalent of when they decided to start putting a huge yoke of debt around the necks of young students going to university. Frothing politicians (and others) were huffing and puffing, asking why exactly did these selfish young people believe that the taxpayer should fund their further education that could lead to them earning much more in the future. Almost every one of those politicians had already benefitted from free university education - often with generous grants too - and I don't recall hearing a single one weeping with contrition and promising to repay the taxpayer every penny, with interest.

I personally escaped having to pay fees - and decades of debt repayments - by a couple of years; I don't see what made me unquestionably worthy of it but somebody who happened to have been born a few years later outrageous for hoping to have it too.

Bold fail

Someone near me has an illegal driveway (no dropped curb), so the council put a couple of concrete bollards Infront of it so stop cars from being able to use it.

I can only see that as a misuse of council funds. It's hard enough to get pot holes repaired or speed bumps installed, blocking pavements with bollards for anything other than road safety reasons is ridiculous.

Is it a misuse of fund though?
What is the cost of the pavement collapses and causes damage to sewer/water pipes, cabling etc?
How much would it cost for a several man crew to come out, dig up the affected area and make good? Probably a lot more than a concrete bollard!

Also there may be a safety concern. What if someone makes a drive that is right on a blind junction? That is a road safety issue- a dropped kerb would be declined but if someone just goes ahead with a drive way and parking there then the council need to make the road safe

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll

I'm too lazy to Google but if I recall correctly, a driveway can add 5-10% to the value of a house, at least in areas where parking is something that can be problematic and I bet it would add more in London than it would in the midlands. Therefore it's not just something some of us are "lucky enough" to have, we paid a fair amount for it.

I'm more "deserving"( ) of a large garden because I paid for it. The neighbours can't move their fence back a bit onto the green behind the houses because "why are they any less deserving of a big garden". It's not about being deserving of anything. You get what you pay for. If you haven't paid for a house with a driveway or paid to have the kerb dropped, you don't have a drive and can't demand people don't "block" the front of your house.

@weatherwarnings

Yeah I am great fun at parties, whats your point? That a law abiding citizen is boring? That i choose to live by the laws of this country rather than just do whatever I feel like.

If you want to park your car on a driveway either pay for the kerb to be dropped or buy a house with one.

That's the law. Do you think you and others are above it?

@Mistressinthetulips

I can only see that as a misuse of council funds. It's hard enough to get pot holes repaired or speed bumps installed, blocking pavements with bollards for anything other than road safety reasons is ridiculous.

Its not a misuse of funds the law is clear on the matter as are the consequences. If you don't want money being spent that way then people should stopping breaking the law then