Dear Illustrious community,

We have a pain in the form of two outstanding planning conditions. Just to put in context, in 2005 we received pp with two other people for 9 "Eco houses" - We are self builders, not developers and have built a small straw and round pole timber house. We have had to provide infrastructure to the plots in the form of a driveway , basically crushed concrete and limestone chip pings. We're happy with this and fits with SUDs….

However, for the first 5 meters into our unadopted cul-de-sac, Highways are stipulating must be tarmac which puts paid to our permeable covering ambitions and will send water shooting down the quite steep hill quite apart from our wish not to pave paradise with yet more high embodied energy, oil based tarmac….

Is anyone familiar with this? Highways say the material has to be something they can up-keep cheaply/easily and tarmac is the man.

The other aspect of the pain is even worse for us, our grass verge on the roadised of a very old flint wall will apparently be a greater asset if it's tarmaked over to make a pavement. This is in the middle of nowhere, doesn't connect on either side with anything, has never been used as a pavement and is lovely as a grassed verge with overhanging trees. In addition there is a large pole with a mirror atop which has bee placed there by a grain store in order to see better on a blind corner; this is right in the middle of the narrow verge at one end…

PLEASE, can anyone point us to something that will support our case? They seem unmoved by SUDS requirements (we're a rural village…) Also, any ideas as to alternative road materials which may possibly appease their first 5 meters from the highway requirement? Thank you!

You could use permeable asphalt.

We are planning to use permeable resin bonded gravel on our drive which is SUDs compliant. It is more expensive than tarmac, but I can't see the Council objecting to it.

If you are concerned about run off at times of heavy rainfall you could insert a slot drain between the hard surface and chippings which leads to a soak away?

Posted By: richardelliotWe are planning to use permeable resin bonded gravel on our drive which is SUDs compliant. It is more expensive than tarmac, but I can't see the Council objecting to it.

We used resin bound gravel on the part of our drive next to the road. It was laid on 150mm of compacted type 1, then a covering of 70mm permeable asphalt and then 18mm resin bound gravel.

Posted By: Carol hunterThank you to all.
The planning ref is 05/00799/F Borough Council of Kings Lynn and West Norfolk.

Thanks for that, Carol. We're in Mid-Suffolk.

Re footpath (Condition 13) it may be we can get this taken off but of course it will require tactful combat through the medium of correspondence. It turns out we have to pay £360, the equivalent of a planning application fee to remove the condition. Not only do we have to pay that should we wish to, but the owners of each of the plots who did re-submissions, that's most of them….

Hmm, that sounds tricky but perhaps ought to be possible to get it done for a single fee since they only have to do one lot of work. Possibly there's a precedent somewhere, or maybe just a suggestion that you're going to appeal...

As for the road access Condition 8 "Prior to the first occupation of the development hereby permitted the vehicular access shall be constructed in accordance with norfolk County Council residential access construction specification, and additionally to accord with details to be approved in writing by the Borough planning Authority, for the first five meters into the site as measured back from the near edge of the adjacent carriageway"

Right, so similar wording to ours. We had to clear our condition before commencement of work, so I didn't argue about materials, but I think you should be able to suggest an alternative material and the planners, who actually take the decision, may not care as much as Highways, who probably suggested the bitmac. If it comes to it, then again letting them know that you will appeal may influence them.

We now understand that Highways own the first 3 meters of our access road.

Ah! So that explains why they want bitmac, which might make that part of the problem more difficult, but it seems like they want in the other condition to make you build a footpath on their land at your expense. Given that the Suffolk drawings seem to hint that only the highways authority can build footpaths, I suspect they may have overreached and they should instead have asked you for a S106 contribution (or CIL?) to build the footpath. So maybe you can get that struck out as unimplementable. Unless somebody on here knows for sure, it sounds like a chat with a planning lawyer might be worthwhile.

There are four other gravel drives on the same road that meet the edge of the highway, two of which are new builds. Of course we can't expect consistency. We are the unfortunate exception.

I presume you mean that the other new builds don't have the same conditions. Were their permissions granted at about the same time? If so, it argues for inconsistency and can probably be exploited by somebody who knows the law in detail.

HTH, Dave

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