Dropped Kerbs

[Polly25]

We already have a double dropped kerb leading to our double driveway. We live at the end of a Close. Immediately next to our driveway is a double residential parking space, which is currently occupied, and immediately next to this we have created another new double driveway. We have approached the council/highways who have agreed that we can have a new dropped kerb on the new created driveway. However, we would have to re-instate and lose the existing driveway by having that dropped kerb brought back up. The current driveway is 10 meters away from the new driveway.
We will very soon be a 4 car family due to our teenagers recently passing their driving test, and soon to be buying cars, having 2 dropped kerbs would benefit everyone by having all cars off the road.
Therefore, my question is - why can’t one house have two separate drop kerb driveways, which are completely separated (10 meters apart) and not next to each other, which, in turn, would serve to benefit all local neighbouring properties by keeping all the vehicles of the highway.
Any advise would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! 🙂

Maybe it's because having all the dropped kerb stops others parking on the road?

The rules around dropped Kerbs are strict because they inhibit where others can park. You can drive over the keen as is to park on your new drive (as long as that doesn’t result in you parking on the path) but it would be v unusual to get 2 dropped Kerbs to one house unless there is a cresent drive.

I think the council has been fair.

(As a side note, are you really going to buy 2 teens cars as soon as they pass their tests? Won’t they just share yours until they earn enough to buy their own?)

would it end up being too close to mains services, grids, trees, etc?
They treat each house an an individual there is no particular policy.

I think you will have to move somewhere with a driveway for four cars.

If everyone had dropped kerbs for 4 parking spaces there would be nowhere left on the road for legal parking.

If all your neighbours had 4 cars, would there be sufficient parking? If not, then I think you might need to consider not having one car each or moving to a larger property.

When my dsis and I lived with dps we all had a car so 4 cars to park on one drive...we had a specific order as 3 were in a line and another infront of the house which required the top 2 moving to get out! It was a carry on sometimes but we managed for years, you'll just have to agree an order depending on who leaves when and be prepared to move cars around if you want them all on the drive

It would obviously be best to have one entrance to your property and all the parking flows from that. Might inconvenience you more but better for your neighbours.

Why can't they park on the road? Why do they need to be off road?

Would your second dropped curb reduce the on street parking? So great for you but a problem for anyone else who wants to park on the road? I guess the council have to consider everyone’s needs, not just yours.

From what I can read- an average drop kerb length would be around one car long, if you you take up one car long to get two cars off the road, then how is this selfish? surely this is better for everyone. I think I can see where you are coming from. We have endless neighbours parking half on the kerb and half on the road, many on blind bends. I am sure that if they took up one car length to reduce two cars from the road, this would benefit everyone along our road. As regards knowing the actual rules on this,,,,I am not sure, as it looks like most other comments aren't either.

There are a couple of properties near me that have 2 dropped kerbs-I think its really unfair as that means they effectively take away 2 on street parking spaces, even worse on 1 of the properties as they never have a car parked on the their driveway yet stop 2 other vehicles parking on the road.

Ianbro - reminds me of watching 'Butterflies' back in the day.

Our local council does have a policy of limiting accesses to one per house. Partly because of parking. Partly because there is a direct correlation between no. of access points onto a road and no. of accidents. Particularly pedestrians. May not directly apply at head of cul de sac. But sound reasoning behind the policy.

The mini with the Union Jack?

You’ve got to factor in also the space on either side of the opening that needs to be maintained so as to provide adequate visibility in each direction. Reckon would be more than a single parking space being lost.

Because it deprives everyone else of on street parking. You want two double drives that's taking away at least 4 spaces on the road - probably more. It's greedy.

Thanks for all your comments. It is tricky, as I am not able to post a photo of the area onto this forum for you to see clearly. The section of road that has the new entrance to the new driveway, including the existing driveway, has had no vehicles parked on the road for all the years we’ve lived here. All the houses along this section have double garages and double driveways, and with exception to the post delivery van, this is the only vehicle that parks. We have good friendships with our neighbours, two of which suggested we post the question about dropped kerbs onto forums like this one for some sound advice, as there doesn’t seem to be a definitive answer online. We were hoping for someone who may have more of a professional take on this. Thank you.

It's always going to come down to local council policy on something like this though, surely.

Perhaps you should have mentioned in your OP "only respond if you are a professional, otherwise I'm not interested, thanks."

There's likely to be a council policy of some kind that limits access to the highway for individual dwellings. Your road may well be able to handle it, but they won't want to create a potential precident that developers could take advantage of. Often, have a second access is the first step towards a second dwelling.

It could also be because they want to preserve as much of the 'green line' between the road and residences. I'm guessing this might be the case, because you say there aren't cars currently parked on the road.

If you have space an alternative would be to create an 'in/out' access. They might be happy with this.

Why not ask them?

Every Council has its own policy on dropped kerbs. You just need to look it upon the Council's website. There is no one size fits all advice any professional can give you.

Thank you to the last 3 posts. It is a tricky one. I agree, there doesn’t seem to be an answer anywhere. Many of the properties around us do have ‘in and out’ driveways for 4 vehicles, with 2 dropped kerbs. We are not able to create that, but we will have another chat with the local council and ask for a a more definitive answer. Maybe it is because of a ‘potential second dwelling’ (albeit a very tiny one...but..maybe). All they said was ‘it’s not allowed’, but they couldn’t, at the time, give a reason.
Thank you, again. We will continue to pursue 😊.

I'm assuming you're preferred layout is something like driveway one, garden area, then driveway two the other side of garden?

Would you be able to pave / tar some of what is the garden to give you the same parking area but served from one dropped kerb? Becomes a larger semi-circular / fan-shaped driveway, rather than 2 straight ones.