Dropped kerb: do I need planning permission?

 

Dropped kerb planning permission and highway approval are two separate questions. You may need planning permission for the new access or associated driveway works, but a vehicle crossing over the pavement or verge also needs the approval of the highway authority under section 184 of the Highways Act 1980.

So a council can lawfully say that no planning application is required and still refuse the vehicle crossing on highway-safety grounds. Equally, obtaining planning permission for an access does not itself give you permission to alter the pavement or kerb.

The pavement or verge outside your home is highway land and is not designed to carry repeated vehicle loads. Section 184 of the Highways Act 1980 gives the highway authority powers where vehicles are habitually taken across a kerbed footway or verge, including constructing a proper vehicle crossing or imposing conditions on its use. The offence provisions are more specific than the common shorthand that merely driving over any undropped kerb is automatically an offence; the detailed section 184 position is explained below.

In practical terms, you should obtain the highway authority’s approval before creating or using a vehicle crossing. This is separate from planning permission. In a two-tier area the highway authority will normally be the county council; in a unitary area it may sit within the same council as planning but is still a different function. The authority may carry out the works itself or require an approved contractor, depending on its local procedure.

The planning question often arises because the dropped kerb accompanies a new means of access. Class B of Part 2 of the GPDO can grant planning permission for an access in specific circumstances, but it is not a general right to create an access anywhere. The driveway or hardstanding behind the crossing must also have its own lawful planning route, and any intervening third-party land requires the necessary private rights.

 

 

 

 

Where do I need planning for a dropped kerb?

 

If your property is on a classified road, you will need planning permission. This is because Class B doesn’t apply here. A classified road is either an A, B or C road. You can use Find My Street to see if your road is classified.

A conservation-area designation does not by itself mean that every dropped kerb needs planning permission. However, removing or altering a wall, fence, gate or pillar is a separate planning question. The ordinary Part 2 Class A limits, conservation-area demolition controls and any Article 4 direction all need to be checked against the actual boundary treatment.

At a listed building, planning permission for the access and listed building consent are separate questions. A structure within the curtilage which forms part of the land and has done so since before 1st July 1948 may form part of the listed building where the statutory test is met, but age alone does not make every wall or fence automatically curtilage-listed.

An Article 4 direction can withdraw a permitted development right that would otherwise be available, including rights relevant to hard surfaces or access where the direction is drafted to do so.

Substantial excavation, retaining walls or other engineering and building works can also require their own planning analysis. A vehicle crossing does not automatically authorise all the works needed to create a usable driveway behind it.

If the property was created as a result of Class G, M, MA, N, P, PA or Q, then you will not have permitted development rights to a hard standing, which then makes a new means of access hard and planning is likely. 

It is worth noting that removal of trees or street furniture might prevent the dropped kerb or make the cost prohibitive. Every site is different. 

Where planning is required the local authority may look at highway safety and pedestrian safety along with street scene etc.

None of which means you can go ahead. Planning permission is one consent; the highway authority’s consent under section 184 is another, and it is needed regardless. See below.

 

Where do I not need planning for a dropped kerb?

 

Do not assume that the absence of one of the obvious restrictions means planning permission is unnecessary. Check whether the proposed access itself is permitted by Part 2 Class B, whether any driveway or hardstanding has its own permission or permitted development right, and whether boundary works need separate consent.

A field or commercial site does not automatically avoid planning permission for a new access. Class B is not limited by land-use category, but it only applies where its own statutory conditions are met, including the requirement for the access to be connected with other GPDO-permitted development. Hard standing might be covered under permitted development. See Class F for residential; Class E for commercial; Class N for schools, colleges, universities and hospitals; Class J for industrial and storage etc; and Class D for Crown Buildings. Remember Class B (new access) must be in conjunction with a permitted development right where creation of that access is required for the PD right.

A conservation-area designation does not automatically remove Part 2 Class B access rights. However, altering or demolishing a wall, gate or other means of enclosure is a separate planning question and can be affected by the ordinary Part 2 Class A height limits, conservation-area demolition controls or an Article 4 direction. Check the boundary works as well as the access itself.

At a listed building, do not reduce the issue to the age of a wall or fence. A pre-1st July 1948 structure within the curtilage may form part of the listed building where the statutory curtilage test is met, but the effect of the proposed works on the listed building and any protected structure must be assessed properly. Planning permission for the access and listed building consent are separate questions.

In summary, Class B of Part 2 is a specific permitted development right, not a general right to create an access anywhere. It applies only where the highway is neither a trunk road nor a classified road and the access is required in connection with other development permitted by Schedule 2 of the GPDO (other than Part 2 Class A). An Article 4 direction can also remove the right locally. If those tests are not met, the access itself may need planning permission.

 

Planning permission is not the only consent – Section 184

 

Everything above is about planning permission. There is a second consent, it comes from a different body, and you need it whether or not planning permission is required.

A vehicle crossing over a kerbed footway or a verge is dealt with under section 184 of the Highways Act 1980, and the decision belongs to the highway authority – the county or unitary council – not the planning department. On an unclassified road with no conservation area and no listed building, you may well need no planning permission at all and still be refused your dropped kerb.

Two things people are usually surprised by.

You have no right to a vehicle crossing. The highway authority decides, and it is entitled to say no. It must have regard to the need to prevent damage to the footway or verge, the need to ensure safe access to and egress from premises so far as practicable, and the need to facilitate the passage of vehicular traffic in highways. Visibility, proximity to a junction, street trees, lamp columns and drainage all come into it.

The crossing is the authority’s to build. Section 184 is a power for the highway authority to execute the works – not a licence for you to send your own builder onto the footway. You may request works under section 184(11); the authority may approve the request, modify it, propose alternatives, or reject it. If it approves, it quotes you a price, and once you deposit that sum you can require the authority to carry out the works. In practice many authorities will authorise an approved contractor to do the work instead, but that is the authority exercising its discretion, not you exercising a right.

One useful thing to know if the crossing is part of a development: where land is being developed under a planning permission and the authority considers the development makes a crossing necessary, section 184(3) lets it serve notice proposing to construct one – and under section 184(9) the developer can offer to execute those works themselves, in accordance with plans the authority has approved.

Afterwards, the crossing is the authority’s to maintain. Section 184(16) is explicit that nothing in the section imposes a maintenance obligation on anyone other than a highway authority.

 

What happens if you just do it

 

Bumping a car over a kerb without a crossing is a bad idea for reasons that go beyond the tyres.

Where the authority sees a vehicle being habitually taken across a kerbed footway or verge, section 184(1) lets it serve notice on the owner and the occupier either proposing to construct a crossing, or imposing reasonable conditions on the use of the footway as a crossing. Knowingly breaching a condition imposed that way is an offence, carrying a fine up to level 3 on the standard scale, currently £1,000.

Notice the shape of that. The authority does not have to wait for you to apply. If you are already driving over the kerb, it can decide to build the crossing and recover its reasonable costs from you under section 184(7). There is a right of objection – Schedule 14 governs objections and when a notice takes effect – but the initiative is the authority’s, not yours.

You will also read, on plenty of council websites, that it is simply “an offence to cross a footway or verge without a properly constructed vehicle crossing”. Read the section and it is more particular than that: the offence at section 184(17) is knowingly using the footway in breach of a condition imposed under section 184(1)(b), or knowingly permitting it. That is not the same proposition. The practical advice is identical – do not do it – but if someone tells you that you are already committing an offence merely by driving over a kerb, ask them which subsection they have in mind.

Separately, damaging the footway is its own problem, and the authority can recover the cost of repairing it. Kerbs and footway construction are not built for vehicle loads, which is the whole reason a proper crossing exists.

 

Two consents, two departments, one driveway

 

Putting the two halves together:

• Planning permission – from the local planning authority, needed only in the situations set out above. Often not needed at all
• Section 184 consent – from the highway authority, needed for the crossing itself. Always

In a unitary area both sit in the same council, though rarely the same team. In a two-tier area they are different councils entirely: the district or borough deals with planning, the county with the highway. An email to one is not an application to the other.

You may also need a separate licence to excavate in the highway, and some authorities require your contractor to hold street works accreditation and public liability insurance. Ask before you book anyone.

A dropped kerb serving a single house is a section 184. A new junction serving a development is a Section 278, which is a different animal altogether – and if you are building an estate road behind it, that is a Section 38. Our guide to highways agreements compares all four side by side.

 

Other thoughts

 

A dropped kerb serving a new vehicular access will usually sit alongside the planning question of forming a means of access to the highway. Class B of Part 2 of the GPDO can grant that planning permission, but only where its statutory conditions are satisfied.

Class B of Part 2 of the GPDO must be in connection with a permitted development right, where a means of access is required.

This is usually hard standing for parking of a vehicle. Which is usually PD.

If this was a field, then temporary use of the land is a PD right that might require means of access to a highway, assuming another suitable one doesn’t exist. For a residential dwelling it might be hard to argue that painting of a house needs means of access to a highway – so we are back to a hard surface for parking. 

That parking area ought to be large enough to be able to park a car – whilst it might be big enough for your mini, does it meet the parking standards for the local authority for perhaps parking a 4×4 for a future resident?

A conservation-area or listed-building designation does not, by itself, answer every planning question about an access or driveway. Check the particular GPDO class, any Article 4 direction and any separate boundary or demolition controls. For a listed building, listed building consent is a separate statutory question: works require consent where they affect the character of the listed building, and curtilage-listed structures can also be relevant. It should not be treated as a merely debatable afterthought.

 

Certificate of Proposed Use or Development

 

If you are concerned about whether you can have a dropped kerb for your home or business, you might wish to submit an application for a certificate of proposed use or development. Planning Geek can assist you with this application if required.

We hope that the local authority will comply with legislation, but sometime we do need to force it with a certificate of lawfulness. Planning Geek can help. 

Please request a fee proposal if you would like us to help with the application.

 

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Dropped Kerb Page Updated: 24th August 2026