Off road parking advice

[Chris Type R]

Hi PHers

I hoping for some ideas/advice about improving our off road parking provision.

We have the last house on a road of mostly mid-1900s properties (to east of photo). Increasingly we're finding it more difficult to make use of our drive/garage due to neighbouring properties adding more cars to their households than they have space to park on/outside their own property. We're quite often having to thread our way through other vehicles and it becomes quite challeging when it's dark, rainy, and we have two cars on our drive.

We'll likely add another vehicle ourselves in 3-4 years for our daughter - at which point we would want to use our full drive width. The next door property will have new owners soon - where the previous owner was not a driver.

Ours is a mid 1960s build, and we've extended our rear garden by buying the property behind and splitting off the garden space to add to ours. This leaves us with a reasonable amount of front garden space which is established by lightly used.





I've been toying with the idea of adding a garage and a drive entrance where the yellow dot is on the overhead photo. We'd want to retain the existing space. In order to reduce the impact of shading, we'd probably want the new structure to be as far east and north as possible. The land also falls in this area away from the property. The garden area has 3 steps leading down.

Before I start spending money/effort exploring this, are there any thoughts about whether this will be a failed endevour (planning permission wise) or whether there are any other alternative strategies I'm not seeing. The shape / corner of the garden wall creates a pinch point and 90 turn from road.

[mattvanders]

Thinking outside of the box and less cost (hopefully) could you not apply for a drop kerb to be extended further along horizontal from the corner point with the plan to square off your front garden. This does two things, makes the drive way a bit bigger but also prevents others parking in the area and restricting your access to the drive way

[url]|https://forums-images.pistonheads.com/642396/202602064868536[/ur]

Blue being an extended wall/drive way plot, red being the dropped curb and purple being the area that cars could no longer park. I know there is a minimum length that driveways need to be to ensure the car is not overhanging onto the road but if the car is now diagonal to the house it might be an issue.

Last thing you would want to do is apply for double yellow lines as then this would restrict you parking in front of you own house.

All worth a conversation with the council

Edited by mattvanders on Friday 6th February 13:34

Edited by mattvanders on Friday 6th February 13:36

[Chris Type R]

mattvanders said:

Thinking outside of the box and less cost (hopefully) could you not apply for a drop kerb to be extended further along horizontal from the corner point with the plan to square off your front garden. This does two things, makes the drive way a bit bigger but also prevents others parking in the area and restricting your access to the drive way

...

All worth a conversation with the council

Thanks, I had not thought of that option It seems so obvious now that you've drawn it out.

It's something I could suggest to a council planning officer (if that's the correct person to talk to) as an option. It would come with the added benefit of being able to use solar panels as the fencing material for a new fence.

[MrBarry123]

I’d assume the chance of your local council approving your plan for creating another access to the road, unless it was replacing your existing driveway, to be not very high.

[Chris Type R]

MrBarry123 said:

I d assume the chance of your local council approving your plan for creating another access to the road, unless it was replacing your existing driveway, to be not very high.

That is the concern.

[RSTurboPaul]

Could you create a garage with living space 'a workshop' over it in the location suggested above?

Plumb it and wire it as if it was a flat, with full gas/electric/water/sewage (connections if not full install), then when you want to sell the place, apply to convert to a new residence, split the garden at the left hand edge of it, and then you'd have whatever a 1-2 bed flat with garage and rear garden goes for in addition to the main house sale.

Your neighbours may see through this cunning ploy, though

[Chris Type R]

RSTurboPaul said:

Could you create a garage with living space 'a workshop' over it in the location suggested above?

Plumb it and wire it as if it was a flat, with full gas/electric/water/sewage (connections if not full install), then when you want to sell the place, apply to convert to a new residence, split the garden at the left hand edge of it, and then you'd have whatever a 1-2 bed flat with garage and rear garden goes for in addition to the main house sale.

Your neighbours may see through this cunning ploy, though

I think that'd be the hardest to get permission for - and we have the large garden space to the west and own the property (not on map) to the west also - which has it's own frontage. We could get planning permission for a larger property there in the future or sell the 3 plots together to a developer to maximise the land use. Our properties back on to a recreation ground, which probably adds further planning restrictions.

In fact that entire peculiar ownership situation only came about because a developer wanted to infill the garden area between our house and the then neighbours.

We're dog walking friends with someone who was town mayor and sat on the planning committee - they definitely do keep an eye out for 'stealth' development planning applications.

Edited by Chris Type R on Friday 6th February 14:36

[Tommo87]

If your neighbors are ignorant enough to park opposite your existing drive now, when they would have to be blind not to realise how inconvenient that is, I doubt they would change their habits if you ‘only’ put in a drop kerb.

You absolutely need at least a driveway along that back wall to make them wake up and take notice.

[Jaska]

Tommo87 said:

If your neighbors are ignorant enough to park opposite your existing drive now, when they would have to be blind not to realise how inconvenient that is, I doubt they would change their habits if you only put in a drop kerb.

You absolutely need at least a driveway along that back wall to make them wake up and take notice.

I can definitely see the owner of that car simply just parking with their wheels on the green strip of land to the right and claiming it's technically not blocking anything.

You spend thousands, they change almost nothing...

[POIDH]

I know it's a pain driving wise, but is there room to go onto your drive forwards, then reverse into a couple of spaces on the front garden?
Planning wouldn't be needed to pull back the wall and add in hard standing.
It doesn't solve the problem of inconsiderate neighbour parking...

[onetwothreefour]

I saw a recent case where there was an application to build a new property (thus requiring more dropped curb on an existing street at a dead end) and people objected on the grounds that the extra dropped curb would reduce the available parking.

The highways authority said that the dead end wasn't supposed to be used for parking (emergency service access/turning/? - I don't remember the details). Since the existing parking was technically not allowed, objections that the parking would be reduced weren't going anywhere.

You may find you're in a similar situation - what is the purpose of the wide bit of road opposite you?

[Chris Type R]

onetwothreefour said:

I saw a recent case where there was an application to build a new property (thus requiring more dropped curb on an existing street at a dead end) and people objected on the grounds that the extra dropped curb would reduce the available parking.

The highways authority said that the dead end wasn't supposed to be used for parking (emergency service access/turning/? - I don't remember the details). Since the existing parking was technically not allowed, objections that the parking would be reduced weren't going anywhere.

You may find you're in a similar situation - what is the purpose of the wide bit of road opposite you?

I think you might be referring to the indent which is typically used for parking.... that's actually intended as a turning area I believe. There's no signage/prohibition/enforcement of it being a turning area - I'm only going on what I was told by a neighbour which lived there since the houses were built in the 60s.

The shape of this supports the assertion though... with the sweep in to the space being in both directions.

Our town is on the edge of the county border so there's very little to no parking enforcement. I expect that the only time our town pops up in conversation at county level is when there's a need to find somewhere to plop down new housing developments.

Edited by Chris Type R on Friday 6th February 18:03

Edited by Chris Type R on Friday 6th February 18:10

[Chris Type R]

Jaska said:

I can definitely see the owner of that car simply just parking with their wheels on the green strip of land to the right and claiming it's technically not blocking anything.

That's something that rarely happens - only because the drop off is not insignificant.

[Chris Type R]

POIDH said:

I know it's a pain driving wise, but is there room to go onto your drive forwards, then reverse into a couple of spaces on the front garden?
Planning wouldn't be needed to pull back the wall and add in hard standing.
It doesn't solve the problem of inconsiderate neighbour parking...

I don't know that it would help - a solution would be a rotating pad - but that's not in budget

[Chris Type R]

Tommo87 said:

If your neighbors are ignorant enough to park opposite your existing drive now, when they would have to be blind not to realise how inconvenient that is, I doubt they would change their habits if you only put in a drop kerb.

You absolutely need at least a driveway along that back wall to make them wake up and take notice.

In fairness, I suspect that people park there thinking they're leaving ample space between their vehicle and our drive without considering the manoeuvre.

It's the awkwardness of having to do a 90 degree reverse (slightly uphill) especially if there are two cars on the drive and then to further reverse salom down the road past the other cars parked on the road/pavement. This is aggravated if its dark and raining.

I'm obviously a driving god, but it mostly affects my wife - and then I have to hear about it multiple times a week.

[Chumley.mouse]

Just park one of your cars where the blue car is. ( wife’s?). Job done.

[Chris Type R]

Chumley.mouse said:

Just park one of your cars where the blue car is. ( wife s?). Job done.

That only works when/if the spot is clear. Often people will park and not return to their car for a number of days.

[Chris Type R]

This is another possible solution to give extra space for manoeuvre. While not part of the plan submission it would allow for parking straight forward from the road. The shape is representative but should ideally parallel and perpendicular the house (and fence line).

It would mean extending the 'dropped kerb' rather than creating a new entrance. In theory the drive would go from 2 awkward spaces to 2 awkward+1 easier spaces.Potentially there could be an additional section to the east behind the hedge to place a shed for bicycle storage. This would be handy for house battery storage also.

[MrBarry123]

You could try the gentle approach of putting a sign on the wall which says something like “please leave this area clear so residents can access their driveways safely”. Some people will ignore it but most normal people will see the sign and do as asked.

[ade73]

Get in touch with the council and ask for KEEP CLEAR and a line Across the road inline with your drive to be painted on. My previous house in a cul de sac had a similar layout and the house at the end was forever getting blocked in/out by cars on the school run. May speed things up if you offer to pay for it.