Service strip options - Best option for driveway over srvc strip

[steveandsue]

Hi
We are looking to resurface and widen our driveway. Our problem relates to a grassed service strip area to the side of the entrance to our existing driveway. To widen our driveway would mean driving over (and having 2 wheels of a parked vehicle on) this service strip area. We could just resurface it the same as the rest of the driveway but are conscious that we risk the council coming and digging it up at any time at our cost. Are we even allowed to do anything to it? One option I have considered is using something like Bodpave grass paver grids. The area of service strip is only approx 1.7m by 3.1m.
Any thoughts on this issue would be much appreciated.
Many thanks
Stephen and Sue

[Tony McC]

You have to contact the highways dept at your local council. They will have a list of "approved constructions", which usually include mass concrete (but rarely PIC), bitmac, and concrete flags. In some circs they will allow block paving, as long as it is used elsewhere in the vicinity and it is highway standard (80mm block, 150+mm sub-base). However, as each LA has complete and utter control over this, you are at their mercy. The neighbouring LA might well accept, say, block paving, while yours will only consider either bitmac or concrete and nowt else.

Also: it is almost a certainty that your LA will have a list of approved contractors to undertake work on the service strip (which is technically part of the public highway) and may not permit your contractor to carry out the works.

[steveandsue]

Thanks for the quick reply. I guess I knew this was going to have to involve the council at some stage. We live on a cul-de-sac which is itself block paved, as is most of our driveway presently. Chances are that the widened drive would be block paved also.
If the LA were to agree to it being block paved by one of their own contractors, presumably we would have to pay. What if they then need to dig it up in future, who would pay then?
I've seen simpler grass protection grids on the internet today which seem almost to just bed into the surface of the grass and get pinned down. That sounds very simple to fit and, if the need ever arose, to lift as well. Would you consider that an option without needing to get the council involved?
A neighbour on our road recently had a landscaper do their drive, including service strip and that isn't standard block pave. I will have a word with them but I'm guessing they didn't get the council involved and would not thank us for getting the council sniffing around!

[Tony McC]

The whole point of using an LA approved contractor is that if/when they come to dig up the service strip, it is done at the expense of the utility co and *must* be put back to the standard that was there. So, if you get block paving (and given its presence on the highway already, I can't see why they'd object), then any excavation or remedial work must go back as THE SAME block paving, and not a patch of concrete or bitmac.

Next: the grass protection mesh. While this may seem to be a satisfactory "non-permanent" solution to your problem, the whole point of involving the LA is that their approved methods ensure that any services are at the requisite depth and adequately protected from vehicle overrun. If you rely on a mesh and then, say, the lecky cable gets stretched or damaged, even if it's not your fault, the LA can bill you because you've been running a vehicle across a section of the highway not constructed to carriageway standards. It's the difference between footway and carriageway; only the latter is deemed suitable for vehicle overrun.

[steveandsue]

Thanks again Tony. Our correct and best course of action is quite clear to us now. I will contact the LA next week and see where it takes us.