Hi, we've had a problem at a family member's house where the dropped curb driveway has always been too steep, this results in more or less every car scraping. Now, who's fault is this, should i complain to the council, and try and get them to pay to redo it, or will they tell us to foot the bill? The house was built in the 70s so it hasnt been done recently. Thanks.
Dropped Curb Too Steep
- Thread starter Jaaay
- Start date
Cheers do you know roughly how much it came to?
Soldato
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- 11 Sep 2009
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- 14,064
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- France, Alsace
Parents had their curb dropped for nothing as they said that they drove up and down (wasn't a car place to start, but they made it one) and the council came and did it for them. No charge.
He was very fortunate to get a highways contribution towards an access modification. I have had to pay privately to have curbs modified in the past.
While the highways authority generally grant permission with no problems they don't want anything to do with the arrangements to carry out the physical work. The best they could muster was an approved list of contractors.
i dont see how "fault" can be attibuted to this, unless you look at it as your fault for buying an innappropriate car
This. That is all the Highways Authority do is grant permission and give you a licence to get the work carried out by one of the approved licenced contractors.
In general, this work is originally carried out by the people who made the house therefore your only claim would be against whoever did it (wrongly) in the seventies.
The road had a extended pavement done and the road dug up and re-done. Pavement was a lot higher than it was before causing him problems getting up his drive. Sure he said it took around half a year to get them back out and sort it.
Definitely said he had to pay half towards it though.
Definitely said he had to pay half towards it though.
I wouldnt call a standard golf, s-class or e-class 'inapproapriate cars', would you?
If a dropped curbed driveway can't be used to drive cars in and out without damage i'd call that a fault!
Reading. You're doing it wrong.
From a random council website for a rough idea:
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/kerbdropping#cost
http://www.tameside.gov.uk/kerbdropping#cost
Problem is that dropped curbs have to be made to specific rigid guidelines hence you can only use licenced contrators to do it nowadays (years ago, once you got the permission, you could use any contractor).
Also, these conditions will have changed over the years to suit current vehicles. I suspect that back in the seventies, the drop curb was done to adequate regulations which meant that most vehicles were fine with it. In todays modern age with lowered vehicles and low profile tyres that perhaps won;t be the case. I am sure you would be fine with an Austin Princess
On a serious note, unless the drop curb was not made to the required standards in the seventies (in which case you have a claim against the housebuilder) or as in Rybo89's case there had been a major change in the road height affecting the drop curb, it comes down to yourself to be financially responsible to make any alterations necessary to get from the public highway to your property.
We have just paid £1800 to have an 8m wide drop kerb put it. Yours I would presume will be smaller so will cost less. I think the licence fee was £125 as well.
EDIT: Beaten by Liquidfox, it will cost you much less to have yours dropped as ours was a new one