Would we be ok to do this?

[Concestor]

I'm attaching a terrible diagram to try and help explain this. When we bought our house the previous owners were partway through making improvements and at the front they had added a porch, and built a front wall with double gates for the drive. When they did this, they made the drive entry wider than it was before, but our house has a strip of grass along the front boundary as part of the pavement (ie it's not on our land) so there's a bit of grass that sticks out across our drive.

Hopefully that makes sense. The front garden is a total mess, and we want to redo it and block pave (we have a big back garden full of plants for wildlife). However, we don't want this bit of grass sticking out over our drive.

Additionally, the pavements here are wide, and the road not so, and as we are on a local bus route everyone parks on the pavement rather than the road. This has been the case for over ten years, before we moved here.

So. We would like to a) remove and tarmac the bit of grass that sticks out over our drive (in red on diagram), but we would also like to b) dig up and tarmac the whole grass strip (purple). Other neighbors have done similar in the distant past, as some bits are concrete now. This would improve the pavement for pedestrians (although they still have space to walk anyway), and wouldn't impact the environment as grass isn't great for insects and it gets strimmed by the council regularly anyway so nothing gets to seed.

However the grass is part of the pavement and is therefore council property. Other neighbours have extended their drives out to be level with the far edge of the grass ie into the pavement, and the council hasn't done anything, so we thought it might be ok, especially as we aren't going to extend our drive out of our property, just get rid of the grass strip which looks messy.

Anyway, this is long! I was wondering if we'd be ok to just do either of these things? Or if we might get in trouble? I'm worried that if we contact the council they'll say no to both and then we will always have a bit of grass in front of our driveway! What's the worst they could do if we just do it? Make us put the grass back? Or worse?

You'll need to contact the council anyway to request the drop kerb to be extended to match the width of the drive.

If you don't, there's nothing to stop people parking level with where the current grass / drop kerb ends and overhanging the end of your drive.

I strongly recommend that you do NOT do this. Just because the neighbours have done it doesn’t make it ok and it may cause problems when you come to sell the house in future. You’re also risking at the very least being ordered by the council to reinstate it as it was.

As the previous poster has said, you will need to ask the council to get the kerb dropped anyway.

No, you cannot co-opt council land, and replace council verge with tarmac!

I am surprised the council haven’t gone after the other residents.

People are so entitled, making free with public space to accommodate their bloody cars!

If the bit of land in question is council-owned, then write to the council and ask permission to do what you're proposing to do rather than just go ahead and do it anyway.

If the council won't give you permission to tarmac over the grass verge, check with the council to find out what their schedule is for mowing the grass verges in your area and ensure they stick to this. Maybe your local councillors can help with this?

The red it I'd definitely do, without a srcond thought.

The purple bit I'd do, forgiveness is easier to get than permission.

who wants a straggly, skinny strip of grass along the front wall??

if it's going to have other people parking in it (have I pictured that correctly?) then tarmac makes sense. If people aren't going to park on it, I'd plant flowers

Theyve allowed others to set a precedent, I can't see them making you turn it back to grass, but if they do it's not a huge job to do & you can put some nice turf down.

I have no clue OP, but wanted to say top marks on the MN-required diagram!

No, you can't alter council land. We have a narrow driveway and a dropped curb that's shared with the neighbours so it's half on each side. We just have to enter the driveway at an angel (really we mount the kerb).

I think you should just bite the bullet, and concrete over the whole grass strip! Who needs grass?

No, you simply can't appropriate public land and alter it for your own convenience.

And you are kidding yourself about the environmental impact of paving over your front garden. It's irrelevant how big your back garden is or how many plants it contains. You will still be destroying the habitats of myriad creatures who benefit our ecosystem as well as contributing to the impact of flooding and the urban heat island effect.

Ok, trying to answer everyone:

I know that technically you can't alter council land, but the council genuinely doesn't do anything when others do - I actually contacted them about someone turning a huge piece of council land into their own garden and the council response was "well they've made it look nice".

The dropped kerb is fine where it is, it's not a huge bit of extra width (diagram wildly out of scale!) It's about 2 feet max, if that. And we can get on as long as anyone parks to the dropped kerb and not over which they shouldn't do anyway (but my car is always there anyway so no one else parks there, we all have "our" spaces).

We all park on the pavement but by the kerb edge, so the grass is the walking side of that makes sense. The whole pavement is really wide, so there's still ample space.

Besides which that's a red herring because I'm only suggesting tarmacing the bigger bit as most of the time it looks weedy and shit, and getting rid would actually improve how it all looks. The council barely maintains it.

But I can see people think I shouldn't!

And if you are honestly concerned about the lack of biodiversity in the grass and the strimming then you should contact your local councillors. That's what we've done in our local community and we've been able to sow wild flowers on our verges and the council's contractors don't mow until the autumn

Very much this. Instead of trying to steal public land and attempt to justify it by saying ‘well, the council don’t look after it’ why not start making it look nice yourself?

Because I've enough to do! Hence making the front low maintenance as the back is now full of native wildflowers and edibles, transformed from just a lawn when we moved in, no plants at all, and I've two kids with special needs, and I work. I don't have time to faff with the front. I'm going to put in one bed in the paving and put low maintenance stuff in there.

The council has done a lot of wildflower planting elsewhere though. It's certainly not a barren area in desperate need of flowers. Though I do wish they wouldn't strim our strip just as things are about to flower/seed. It's like they have a sixth sense for the worst possible time to do it

Also I'm not stealing it - it is the other side of our wall. There's no way I can use it. I'm just thinking it would be more usable to others and look less shit.

Are you being sarcastic?