Driveway design - too tight?

[puntloos]

One challenge we are trying to work out is that our main parking spot (for a 3p family) is totally fine, straight pull, done.

But with the current design of our house, the secondary spot is hard to get to. 

 

The turning circle pictured is the advised one - meaning a "2.5m corridor" with a 6m full circle. But, the edge of the property is marked by the 'hedge' where we also would hope to have a bit of a lush 'green wall' for privacy reasons. (so cutting it down completely is not what we want either, even if it would solve the parking woes)

 

So:

 

1/ Does anyone have real world experience with a curve like this, theory vs practice? is this actually hard to get in and out of (we ourselves don't plan to park there often, only guests, so I suppose we won't use the 2nd parking *that* often, which matters

2/ Any suggestions on a nice, realistic green hedge?

 

Obviously we could move the entire house back but then we're eating into our garden..

 

 

 

 

[AliG]

I struggled a bit to understand the diagram as the curve looks like a stair.

 

I assume that the fine lines at the front and sides are the hedges? If not then everything else I am about to say is wrong!

 

I think the space looks OK in terms of turning and driving past the front of the house.

 

But then turning around at the end of that area would be very difficult indeed. You'd have to go back and forward 4 or 5 times probably and it may not be possible, that car looks pretty wedged in on the diagram. People would need to park parallel to the front of the house.

 

The problem is therefore that for both spaces you would have to back out, I am surprised that the planners have allowed it actually. Here you normally have to be able to turn around on your property so that you can drive onto the road forwards.

 

In our driveway, which is way bigger, it amazes me how often visitors park themselves in the oddest fashion and then struggle to get out. A lot of people won't want to try and reverse out of your driveway especially if they feel they are squeezing past your car. A lot of people don't like to reverse far full stop.

 

Where is the actual street, it is where the fine grey lines are, or do you have a bit more distance due to hedges? If you do you could cut the hedge back around a metre and allow people to drive in straight in front of the toilet. Then you wouldn't have to pave over the area in front of the living area.

 

Alternatively if you have visitors you could park in front of the house so they can pull in in front of the carport as you'd be used to it and they wouldn't feel like they were squeezing past your car.

 

My consistent view is I don't like squeezing the car into awkward spaces that I am not used to when a small scrape can cost £1000 to fix, even if in reality the space is probably more than enough.

 

[Mike]

The ramp looks reasonable, though not generous - for a car. However if you have a guest park on it, there wouldn't be much space to walk past. The cars you've drawn scale at around 4.65m long, and that's not very generous either - a Ford Focus is around 4.4m, a Mondeo nearly 4.9m.

 

Finally, depending on your local authority, you could have problems with the garage - both because it's also not overly generous in size, and also because some LAs impose restrictions preventing their conversion for other uses, which you seem to be planning.

 

You may need to be a bit more generous all round.

Edited March 10, 2020 by Mike

[Mike]

7 minutes ago, AliG said:

turning around at the end of that area would be very difficult indeed

+1

[puntloos]

10 minutes ago, AliG said:

I struggled a bit to understand the diagram as the curve looks like a stair.

 

Ha, that is because it is a stair  - I just used the stair tool to draw a curve.

 

To be clear: our parking regs say I have to be able to 'fit 3 cars' on the plot. As an example: this is allowed. 

 

The self-imposed limitation is that we value privacy so ideally we only want one opening in that hedge. This means that really only the 'main' spot (in front of the garage) is what we intend to use day-to-day. The rest of the spots are a bit more 'theoretical' in that we would have to start cutting the hedge down if we ever wanted to buy more cars.

 

The situation I'm trying to gauge is the rare situation where we have guests, the kerbside parking is all filled, and we need to squeeze two cars onto our plot. My drawing shows the car half-in the garage but really I'm thinking more of blocking one car with the other.

 

But the question as said is - is it "reasonably doable" -  whatever that might mean to you - to park a car right in front of our front door, and when you're done, back out the way you came in without turning around..

 

And if not - what is the minimum we can do to make that feasible - e.g. I could imagine cutting the hedge back *somewhat* and imagining the guests to really enter the parking spot in a very faint angle only.

 

 

[AliG]

Ah right, then yes I would say it works in terms of meeting the planning requirement, but I would just show two cars one behind the other parallel to the house, there isn't enough room to turn around at the end and I don't think there is an issue if one car blocks another in.

 

You definitely could get in and out, it just wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable to everyone.

 

I have been reading your thread about the "garage" and might have some more comments on that now I understand the situation.

[puntloos]

8 minutes ago, AliG said:

Ah right, then yes I would say it works in terms of meeting the planning requirement, but I would just show two cars one behind the other parallel to the house, there isn't enough room to turn around at the end and I don't think there is an issue if one car blocks another in.

 

You definitely could get in and out, it just wouldn't necessarily feel comfortable to everyone.

 

I have been reading your thread about the "garage" and might have some more comments on that now I understand the situation.

 

So indeed the drawn 'turning circle' is doable if you're a half-capable driver? It's at least my theory/hope but it's tough to test

[AliG]

Most cars have a turning circle between 11 and 12m, so 6059mm for half a turn seem tight but correct. You actually have a bit more space than that as the circle is not tight to the house and boundaries.

 

It looks like you have redone the plans since you put them up previously. Any chance to see the new ones?

 

 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

Take care with your making soft corners etc.

 

My new car is a lot bigger than the old one, and despite extreme care 18 months later I have minor scratches on 2 corners.

 

Are you going to have an "exit in a forward gear"requirement?

Ferdinand

[puntloos]

6 hours ago, Ferdinand said:

Take care with your making soft corners etc.

 

My new car is a lot bigger than the old one, and despite extreme care 18 months later I have minor scratches on 2 corners.

 

Are you going to have an "exit in a forward gear"requirement?

Ferdinand

"Exit in forward" - I don't think we have that req no. As said I imagine you drive in forward, and then back out in reverse. 

 I'm not 100% clear if cars behave meaningfully different driving backward.. clearly it requires a bit of careful navigating where you could get 'stuck' in an annoying way.

 

@AliG you are correct, I'll post new versions shortly, we are nearing our final design overall I think. 

[Jeremy Harris]

12 minutes ago, puntloos said:

"Exit in forward" - I don't think we have that req no. As said I imagine you drive in forward, and then back out in reverse. 

 I'm not 100% clear if cars behave meaningfully different driving backward.. clearly it requires a bit of careful navigating where you could get 'stuck' in an annoying way.

 

@AliG you are correct, I'll post new versions shortly, we are nearing our final design overall I think. 

 

 

Worth checking, as it's a fairly common requirement.  The local policy here states that vehicles must be capable of entering and leaving in forward gear, and a planning condition requiring a turning space is also normally required (although they will accept a turntable).  This is the wording in our planning consent, and I think it's a standard condition they apply:

 

Quote

8. Before the access hereby approved is first brought into use a property consolidated and surfaced turning
space for vehicles shall be constructed in accordance with details to be submitted to and approved, in
writing, by the Local Planning Authority. Such turning space shall be kept clear of obstruction at all times.
 
Reason: In the interests of highway safety.

 

[joth]

15 hours ago, puntloos said:

1/ Does anyone have real world experience with a curve like this, theory vs practice? is this actually hard to get in and out of (we ourselves don't plan to park there often, only guests, so I suppose we won't use the 2nd parking *that* often, which matters

 

 

Yes, I have some experience of a very simliar plot to what you're proposing, and we're able to park our car in the parallel-to-house position entering forward, reversing to get back out. Our car is about as long a production car as you can generally get in the UK (4.9m) so about the upper limit of what you'd need to consider. I'm not sure we may have a tad more width to swing in than the 3688 you  are proposing, but there's a prickly hedge blocking  part of it so we generally try and leave a clear margin around.

I wouldn't choose this layout, especially if I was say doing the school run everyday (on a peak-time busy road) but for the occasional weekend trip we do it's fine

 

3 hours ago, puntloos said:

 I'm not 100% clear if cars behave meaningfully different driving backward.. clearly it requires a bit of careful navigating where you could get 'stuck' in an annoying way.

 

 

Yes. Unless you have all-wheel steering (like Mercades added to their Vito vans to allow them to be used as black cabs) then the swing arc is very different forward vs back. We first tried reversing into the afore mentions spot and it simply doesn't work because the trailing swing arc neeeds to go through the party boundary hedge.

Given the lenght of car, I'm extremely grateful I paid for reversing camera to get back out in reverse though. As it's reversing over a pedestrian footway with regular buggies and kids on bikes etc up and down it, and entirely blinded by two hedges, getting out of their single-handedly without a reverse camera would be quite dangerous.

 

The planners may or may not care about this, given your case is a demolition and rebuild and I believe the limitations on reverse-out must already exist on it? I have no idea if they can/would enforce higher bar on parking reqs for a rebuild vs what's already there.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 10, 2020 by joth