Private Vehicular Access (Dropped Kerbs)

If Planning Permission is not required, the following Design Criteria will apply:

Width
The dropped kerbs should be a minimum of 2.7m driveway width at your boundary, together with the adjoining sloped (taper) kerbs (4.6m overall).

Alignment
Accesses should emerge onto the highway at right angles, as far as possible, to the road.

Gradient
Driveways should generally be no steeper than 1 in 12 (approx 8%) and extend from the road to your boundary.

Turning Space
On busier roads or where driver’s vision is limited, the applicant should endeavour to provide on site turning space for vehicles.

Driver Visibility
When emerging from an access, the driver of a car is located about 2m (X) back from the nearside carriageway edge and their eye level is about 1m above the surface.  From this point, the driver needs to be able to see as far as possible along the road in both directions.  On through routes, the following distances should be achieved in either direction, measured along the nearside carriageway edge:

30mph - Y = 90m
40mph - Y = 120m
50mph - Y = 160m
60mph - Y = 215m

Where these distances cannot be achieved, the applicant should clear their site frontage of all obstructions over 1m in height (600mm in the case of vegetation) for as far as possible in either direction from the access and ask the advice of this Authority.

Parking Spaces
Vehicles must be parked completely off the highway; no part of your vehicle should overhang the footway.  The minimum depth of parking space shall be 5m and have a width of 2.7m.

Surfacing
Within the property, the driveway should be surfaced with a solid bound material (i.e. not loose chippings) for a minimum of 1m inside the property.  This will avoid material being carried out onto the highway.

Surface Water
Where a driveway slopes down towards the road, measures must be taken to avoid surface water run-off from discharging across the adjacent footway.

If you satisfy the above reqirements, you can proceed to the next step.

Paving your Front Garden:

Planning permission:

From 1 October 2008 new rules apply for householders wanting to pave over their front gardens.

You will NOT need planning permission if a new driveway uses permeable (or porous) surfacing which allows water to drain through, such as gravel, permeable concrete block paving or porous asphalt, or if the rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally.

If the surface to be covered is more than five square metres planning permission will be needed for laying traditional, impermeable driveways that do not control rainwater running off onto roads.

How permeable surfaces work:

Loose Gravel

This is the simplest type of construction. The driveway sub-base is covered by a surface layer of gravel or shingle.

Gravel with different shapes and colours is available to make the surface more decorative.

A strip of block paving or asphalt at the entrance can limit the loss and spread of gravel from the drive.

Hard Permeable and Porous Surfaces

Hard surfacing which allows water to soak into it can be built with porous asphalt, porous concrete blocks, concrete or clay block permeable paving.

The material has open voids across the surface of the material or around the edges of blocks that allow water to soak through

To work effectively permeable surfaces should be laid over a sub-base which differs from traditional hardcore which has a lot of fine material in it (sand and silt) that stops water passing through it easily.

For permeable and porous driveways different sub-base materials are required that allow water to pass through and also store the water for a while if it cannot soak into the ground as fast as the rain falls.

Various materials are available and two examples are known as 4/20 and Type 3 sub-base.

Materials for permeable sub-base are described as open graded and consist only of larger pieces of stone that have spaces between to store water.