Driveways · · updated
Turning your front garden into a parking space: the order to do it in
Whether you need planning permission comes down to where the rainwater goes, not how big the drive is. And the dropped kerb is a separate highway approval — which is why so many of these jobs stall before they start.
Worth doing yourself
All of the paperwork, and all of the measuring. You can settle the planning question, get written confirmation from the planning team, work out whether a car will genuinely fit, and make the phase 1 crossover application to East Sussex Highways yourself.
Not worth doing yourself
The crossing itself. In East Sussex it is built by a contractor from East Sussex Highways' approved list once your licence is granted. Check the contractor is on that list before booking the crossing. The footway belongs to the highway authority, not to you.
Most people do this in the wrong order. They get three quotes, choose a surface and agree a start date — and then discover the planning question and the dropped kerb both need settling first. Weeks disappear, and the start date goes with them.
There are two separate permissions involved and they have almost nothing to do with each other. One is about what you lay and where its rainwater goes. The other is about crossing the pavement. This is the order to take them in.
The permission rule is about water, not size
The common belief is that a driveway under a certain size doesn't need planning permission. That isn't the rule. The rule is about whether rainwater can get away without being pushed into the drains.
A permeable surface — gravel, permeable block paving, porous asphalt — is permitted development at any size. So is a conventional impermeable surface, provided the water running off it is directed to a lawn, a border or another permeable area where it can soak away. You need planning permission only when you lay more than five square metres of impermeable surfacing that does not drain to a permeable area.
So the decision that determines whether you need permission is made at the moment you choose a surface and decide where its water goes — not at the moment you measure the plot. Two identical driveways, one draining to a border and one draining to the kerb, sit on opposite sides of the rule.
Sources
Where that rule doesn't apply to you
Permitted development is a default, and plenty of properties have had it narrowed. Check which of these applies before you rely on anything above.
- Conservation areas, National Parks, Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty, World Heritage Sites and the Broads: different requirements apply, and work that needs no application elsewhere may need one here.
- Listed buildings: separate consent rules apply, and they extend to objects and structures that have been within the curtilage since 1948. Carrying out work that needs listed building consent without obtaining it first is a criminal offence.
- An Article 4 direction: the local planning authority can remove permitted development rights for an area, and these are most common in conservation areas.
- Flats and maisonettes, and houses created through certain permitted development conversions, do not have these rights in the first place.
- Any planning condition attached to your own property, which is easy to forget on a newer estate.
Settle planning before you apply for the crossing
East Sussex Highways says that if you need planning permission, get it before applying for a vehicle crossing. Its three questions: does the access join an A, B or C road; is the property in a conservation area; and will rainwater run off the drive instead of staying on your land? If any answer is yes, check with your borough or district council.
So the sequence is: choose the surface and settle where the water goes, establish the planning position, and only then apply for the crossing.
How the East Sussex dropped kerb process works
It is two phases. Phase 1: the homeowner makes the vehicle crossover application to East Sussex Highways. Phase 2: if the licence is granted, a contractor from their approved list builds the crossing.
Fees are published by East Sussex Highways and can change, so check their page rather than this one before you budget. Work across the pavement must be done by a contractor on East Sussex Highways’ approved list. Check this before booking the crossing.
There's no kerb outside my house — do I still need one?
Yes. The licence is permission to cross the footway, not permission to move kerbstones, and a flush kerb or a verge does not change that.
Highway authorities are consistent on this: driving over a footway without an approved crossing is not something they accept, and you can be held liable for damage to the surface caused by your vehicle. The Highways Act 1980 gives the highway authority the power to serve notice where a household habitually drives a vehicle across a kerbed footway or verge, to impose conditions on that use or to construct a crossing — and it makes it an offence to knowingly use the footway as a crossing in breach of conditions imposed that way.
The practical point is simpler than the law: an unlicensed crossing is a repair bill and an argument waiting to happen, and it will show up when you sell the house.
Measure before you spend anything
Half the front gardens people want to convert will not hold a car properly once you account for the doors and the footway. Twenty minutes with a tape settles it.
Step 1
Measure your car, not a car
Length, and width including the mirrors. Then add the room you need to open a door and get out on the side you would actually use. A family hatchback that fits on paper regularly doesn't fit in practice, because nobody measured the door.
Step 2
Measure the plot from the back of the footway
Not from the kerb — from where the highway ends and your land begins, back to the house, bay window or porch. That is the depth you have. Note anything that eats into it: a meter box, a step, a downpipe.
Step 3
Check the whole car stands off the highway
The vehicle has to sit entirely on your land. A boot or a bonnet overhanging the footway defeats the purpose of the crossing and is exactly what a neighbour will report.
Step 4
Work out where the water will go
Stand at the boundary and look at the fall. If the plot runs towards the house, the surface has to be designed to deal with that, and the finished level has to stay well below the damp proof course. Running it into the road is not a solution you are allowed to choose.
Step 5
Look down, then look up
Mark the manhole, the stopcock, the gas meter and any inspection chamber. Then look at the footway itself: a street tree, a lamp column, a telecoms box or a gully in the line of your access is a matter for the council at application stage, and it can move where your crossing goes — or stop it.
What you need
- A tape measure, ideally a 10m one
- Chalk or marker spray
- A spirit level, or a level app on your phone
- The car itself, parked on the road while you measure
Allow half an hour, and do it before you invite anybody to quote.
Check services
Before you put a spade or a bar in the ground
Water, gas, electricity and telecoms runs from the house often sit shallower than people expect, particularly around new estates and anywhere a garage or extension has been added later. Find the service entry points, work out where the runs are likely to head, and dig the first spit by hand. Never swing a mattock or drop a breaker into ground you haven't proved.
Two-page PDF covering the checks to make before any digging starts.
PDF · 2 pages
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Get the sequence right, then get the quotes
Once you know your surface, your planning position and your measurements, quotes become comparable — because everyone is pricing the same job. That is the point at which it is worth having us out.
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