Hello,
Ive been reading through some
posts on here with interest. New to posting on this forum and hope I haven’t put it in the wrong place.
I have a kerb drop issue with the council (a Greater London one).
My fiancé and I bought a semi detached house at the end of 2018. It was very run down internally and we refurbished and gutted the whole thing, extended etc and we are very proud of how it looks now.
There is a front ‘garden’ area which is currently very run down because of all the building works, skips etc. but we always planned and hoped to convert it to a driveway like the semi next to us has. You would easily be able to get 2 cars on the drive. We never thought we would encounter any issues. Lots of the neighbours have a driveway etc. There is never any issues parking on the street, some of it is residents only and some is ticketed but you can mostly always find a spot to park near your house. It is 12 mins walk from a popular zone 6 suburb for context.
Anyway long and short of it is that I went to email the relevant person today about applying for a vehicle crossover. I didn’t do the formal process online where you pay £128 as I had his email from when I enquired when we bought the house. So I dropped him an informal email and asked when he was free to come out to assess the vehicle crossover at our home. I was always happy to fill out the form I just wanted to keep it informal initially.
Anyway he has said he would refuse our application. He sent us some guidance document via email (which is not on the council website) and said the following alongside it:
“I do not have any records of your application for a crossover to the property, if you had applied I would have been able to advise you that you cannot have a crossover to this property, your application would be refused. The reason is; there is a "permit parking" bay outside the property and under the 2019 policy I am unable to remove the parking bay. Prior to April 2019 under the old policy I would have been able to help by seeking an amendment to the "Traffic Order" which may have been agreed but also could have been objected to.
I am as keen to provide off street parking whenever possible, the permission from the surveyor is not the issue in your case., From "highways " i have a policy regarding crossovers and it does not allow removal of any parking bay.”
He has given me his managers email.
However the guidance he attached to the email says the following:
Traffic Management Orders – A proposed vehicle crossover must not result in the need to
amend an existing Traffic Management Order (TMO), e.g. the removal or amendment of existing
waiting and loading restrictions, or parking bay. This includes all designated parking bays, permit
holder parking bays in Controlled Parking Zones (CPZ’s), paid for bays, marked parking bays in
areas of permitted footway parking, restricted zones, home zones, permit parking areas etc.
However each application will considered on its own merits. The full cost of amending both the
TMO and road markings should be met by an applicant. Applicants must be aware that there
could be objections to amending TMO, and objections may not be resolved.
this seems at odds with what he’s saying about not being able to remove the space ?
I basically said that none of this appears on the council website , only the checklist where one of the questions
asks if the street is a controlled parking zone. And then it says if answering yes, the application may initially be rejected and/or delayed. Also I mentioned that the guidance he sent over says there is a possibility of amending the TMO. And he is saying it’s a flat out no?
His final response when I pressed him on this said the ‘traffic order part is a bit confusing’ please email his boss who might be able to clarify. Which I have done.
Can anyone help? At my wits end here we were getting quotes only last week for the driveway work and I feel like this will seriously impact our house value. So many other houses on the road have a driveway. I know precedence means jack all in this situation , or so I am led to believe. But his emails just aren’t making sense. I’ve emailed local councillors for some guidance on this.
Just wondered if anyone else has experience with this?!
What should we do
