Dropped kerb: planning application needed?

[Fringe09]

Looks like near neighbours are going to drop their kerb, but we haven?t seen any planning notices about it. Does anyone know if you need to get planning permission to drop a kerb and if neighbours are consulted? Thanks

[Penguin68]

You cannot drop a curb at will. The local authority must agree to do the work for a fee. So if they are doing the work then permission will have been granted. It's not part of the building planning permission bureaucracy however I believe, but Highways department. So neighbours will not be consulted. As I understand it.

[TheCat]

There's another thread on the forum somewhere where I posed the exact same question about 2 years ago. We've had about 3-4 of our neighbours put them in in recent years, and have never gotten any notice. In addition to the absolutely useless double yellow lines on the corners of our street, it really makes on street parking a 'joy'.....

Just to add though, that neighbour consolation for any form of structural alteratio nowadays no longer involves a letter in most cases, and simply involves a notice of a few lampposts on your street, which are very easy not to notice sometime...

[sillywoman]

I learned the other day that you can park on anyone's drive and it's not illegal as long as you're not blocking anyone in! It was a bit of a jaw dropper to be honest. So if your neighbours put in a drop kerb, you can't find anywhere to park on your road & their drive is empty, you can just use it as a parking space.

[ianr]

I think that's not quite true. As I understand it, no penalty notice can be issued for the blockage of access to a drive with a dropped kerb, other than on a complaint by the occupier ( http://www.eastdulwichforum.co.uk/forum/read.php?5,1877690#msg-1877815). So if they arrived back home from a drive and found you blocking their entrance, they could complain and hope that you'd get speedily ticketed. I'd actually be rather surprised if they couldn't do that in any case. What's your source?

[sillywoman]

They can complain to the council, but the council has no facilities to take any action and so they don't/won't. Google it to see. I was told by a friend who had an awful time with people parking on their drive near a train station, discovering that there was in fact nothing they could legally do, I was very suprised, so investigated further, and sure enough....

[MarkT]

sillywoman, you say "you can park on anyone's drive". Are you saying on their private property?

[Sally Eva]

http://www.southwark.gov.uk/parking/guide-to-parking/dropped-kerbs-and-driveways

Says pretty clearly they can issue PCNs for blocking access to driveways. Could be lying, I suppose

[Penguin68]

I think there's quite a difference between parking across a drive and parking on it. But if you parked on someone else's drive they would need to take a private prosecution out for trespass - neither the council nor the police can respond to otherwise legal parking - which all parking on private property would be, unless otherwise stated. If you had a problem as a drive owner I would put a notice saying cars parked without permission on your land would be clamped and released only after payment of a ?150 fee, or seized and disposed of if left for 7 days or more. And buy a clamp and do it. The law then would be entirely on your side, I believe.

[ianr]

MarkT Wrote:

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> sillywoman, you say "you can park on anyone's

> drive". Are you saying on their private property?

I was doubtful but took sw's "it's not illegal as long as you're not blocking anyone in!", generously, as implying that it was about parking on the road. The blocking would be irrelevant if it weren't. I suspect now that I was wrong.

I'd assumed it was common knowledge that the council can't do anything about someone parking on your private property (whether obstructively or not), any more than they can if someone pitches their tent on your lawn. Those are civil trespasses, actionable by the occupier.

[ianr]

Penguin68, I think you might get done for the clamping. ;-) See eg https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/9155/guidance-unpaid-parking-charges.pdf

Lounge?

[sillywoman]

No no, you can park actually ON someone's driveway. Yes it's trespass, but the police won't touch it cos it's now a council matter, and the council don't have the facility to deal with it, so they won't do anything. Of course they COULD issue a PCN as per Sally Eva's (rather odd) post (why would they lie?), but they won't/don't. My poor friend had someone parked on her drive (locally) for 6 months with no recourse to any law to help her for the whole time.

[Applespider]

We?ve recently had a dropped kerb put in. We?d asked the council before and been refused as too close to traffic humps that at the time required 5m clearance each side. That didn?t seem to stop people parking over them in any case!

This time, we applied, they came out and said they could do it and gave a price which we went ahead with. Yes, it stops a space on the road. But as the house has been converted into flats, it takes 3 cars off the road so a net gain for neighbours.

Council advised that they won?t put a white line across as that means nothing. But they can ask the PCN officers to include it in patrols and enforce if required. Admittedly as I don?t own a car, I?m unlikely to be impacted either way😝