Caught up in the new driveway regulations

paul_m · Post: # 35452Post **paul_m** Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:31 pm

We want to enlarge and block pave our driveway, which is currently dodgy tarmac over broken concrete. It slopes down to the road, the house end is 1metre above the road, and the lawn to the side is at this level. Rainwater currently drains onto the road, there is no pavement. Approx area is 60sq m. We are on heavy clay, and in the back garden the water table is often 0.5m below the surface.
So being a good citizen I went to discuss it with the planning department. In there opinion a permeable surface would not work, and a grid drain and soakaway would do nothing at all, which is what I had already decided. Their only suggestion was that I should ask the Highways Dept. for permission to continue to run off water onto the highway, and then apply for planning permission as I wouldn't comply.
The Highways Dept. contacted me and refused permission. He suggested that I should put a French Drain under my lawn, this would be 4m long, and would have to be 1.5m deep. When I protested that this was unlikely to work, and would incur significant expense, aswell as ruining the lawn he just brushed it off as no problem, 'just get a groundworks contractor to do it. They will know what to do'.
I think he suggested a 250mm perforated pipe, at 4m long that will hold about .2cum of water, so perhaps I could put a crate in instead, it would be less disruptive, as there is a sloping flower bed between the lawn and drive. Neither is anywhere near the capacity you suggest for SUDS installations
The letter they have sent refers to 'minimsing the amount of runoff to the highway'.
So the questions, would a crate be the best solution, and how far from the edge of the drive would it need to be.
What would you do?
Many thanks for an excellent website and forum, I shall find it helpful as I renovate this house

dig dug dan · Post: # 35453Post **dig dug dan** Thu Mar 12, 2009 7:53 pm

my advice would be to do the job and ignore the highways.
There are four driveways in a village near me, that were all recently paved , and sloped into the road, and the locals complained to highways about it, as it flooded the road.
they said "no action will be taken".
I have asked the highways about this, and they said you need permission to run the water onto the road, but when someone does it without permission, they would turn a blind eye.
there is nothing stopping you fitting aco drains to the bottom of your drive, and not connecting them to anything. the highways will see you have installed them, but the fact that they fill with water and then drain onto the road is neither here nor there!
If you really do't want to go down this route, then get some stormwater storage cells installed and run your aco drian into it.
I have put loads of these in, and they really do work well!

Post: # 35457Post **msh paving** Thu Mar 12, 2009 10:27 pm

i'll go with dan on this one......

at the moment water runs onto the road,they wont make you change it......as you say the ground is clay storm crates wont work anyway, so maybe just to show willing is to as dan said is put a drain in not connected to anything so if they come to look they see one,they have better things to worry about than you driveway.................MSH

Post: # 35465Post **Dave_L** Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:53 am

How have you contractors got on with the *new* run off guidelines and planning concerning driveway extensions/new areas?

Post: # 35474Post **msh paving** Fri Mar 13, 2009 2:39 pm

In my area of Norfolk no one is taking any notice off the regs at all in the private driveway sector
but last week On Level Paving did a machine lay job on new doctors surgery of over 1000m permable paving ,looks great, probilly because it was a NHS job had to be done that way.MSH

Post: # 35490Post **Tony McC** Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:48 pm

It seems to me that Highways are just being awkward. A 250mm dia perforated pipe on a residential property? Get real!! Even at 1500mm depth, if it's in clay it WILL NOT WORK. All that will happen is that it will fill up, it will surcharge, and then the excess water will flow onto their precious carriageway. Knobheads!

The correct answer to this would be to create a token soakaway with an overflow outlet connected to the existing drainage system. The BCO should agree to this if you apply for PP, and there's no need to get those eejits in Highways involved at all.

If, for some perverse reason, BCO deny PP, then go with the pathetic 0.2mÂ³ capacity crate that Highways suggested. It does NOT provide sufficient capacity for your project, but if that's what they want.... :laugh:

paul_m · Post: # 35517Post **paul_m** Sat Mar 14, 2009 10:26 am

We don't have access to storm drainage, the house is on soakaways, which back up when it rains heavily. Friends were saying when their extension was built the soakaway was half full from the water table as it was dug!
The rainwater from the road is taken into a watercourse that is open further along the road, but is piped under the road in front of the propererties near us. The highways guy did at one point suggest trying to get permission from Anglian Water to discharge into that, which I am sure would neither be easy or cheap.
So I am inclined to put in a single crate soakaway as a token, under the lawn although it means a lot of digging, and allow the rest to overflow onto the highway. That way I nominally comply, and it saves the cost and time of a planning application.

jay-Manor Driveways · Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:53 pm

i thought if you already had a driveway instaled and you just wanted to change appearance then you can just do it , thats what they told me at the office i rang lol

Post: # 35523Post **Tony McC** Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:11 pm

I would try Anglian Water, then. It does vary from area to area, but many local authorities act as agents for the water boards and could, if they were so inclined, grant you the necessary permission. It seems the Highways office is being a bit arsey, so it makes sense to by-pass them.

Jay - that information is wrong. Any changes whatsoever to an existing driveway make it notifiable if you wish to drain to SW or the highway. This is made reasonably clear (or clear by civil service standards) in the legislation and the guidance document. This was done to ensure that anyone renewing or extending a driveway would have to comply with the requirements and thereby stop everyone claiming they were simply updating an existing construction.

However, as several of the Brew Cabin Irregulars have already said, there's not many local authorities pursuing or enforcing this ridiculous piece of legislation.

williams · Post: # 35530Post **williams** Sat Mar 14, 2009 7:51 pm

. :p

Edited By williams on 1237061375

Post: # 35531Post **Dave_L** Sat Mar 14, 2009 8:27 pm

Tony McC wrote:Jay - that information is wrong. Any changes whatsoever to an existing driveway make it notifiable if you wish to drain to SW or the highway. This is made reasonably clear (or clear by civil service standards) in the legislation and the guidance document. This was done to ensure that anyone renewing or extending a driveway would have to comply with the requirements and thereby stop everyone claiming they were simply updating an existing construction.

However, as several of the Brew Cabin Irregulars have already said, there's not many local authorities pursuing or enforcing this ridiculous piece of legislation.

Now does this legislation apply to a tarmac overlay over an existing tarmac surface?