Do You Need A Dropped Kerb For Your Driveway In Bournemouth?

If you are planning a new driveway in Bournemouth and your property does not already have a vehicle crossing over the pavement, there is a step people often forget until late in the process: the dropped kerb. You cannot simply lay a lovely new resin driveway and then bump the car up over a full-height kerb to reach it. That crossing point has to be dropped and constructed properly, and because the pavement is public highway, there is a process to follow.

It is not complicated once you know how it works, but it does take time and it is worth sorting early. Here is what you need to know about dropped kerbs for a driveway in the Bournemouth area, including how it fits with a new resin drive.

What A Dropped Kerb Is And Why You Need One

A dropped kerb - officially a vehicle crossover or vehicle crossing - is the section of lowered kerb and strengthened footway that lets a car drive from the road across the pavement onto your driveway.

It exists for two reasons. First, permission: the footway is public highway, and driving a vehicle across it without an authorised crossing is not allowed. Second, construction: a normal pavement is not built to take the weight of vehicles, so repeatedly driving over an un-dropped footway cracks the slabs, damages the kerb, and can break the shallow utility services that run underneath. A proper crossover strengthens that section to carry the load.

So if reaching your new resin driveway means crossing a pavement or grass verge, you need a dropped kerb. If your drive opens straight onto the carriageway with no footway to cross, or a crossover already exists, you may be fine as you are.

Do You Always Need One?

Not every new driveway needs a fresh dropped kerb, so it is worth checking your specific situation before assuming.

You will need one if you are creating a brand-new driveway where there was none, if you are widening an existing driveway beyond the width of the current crossover, or if you are moving the access point along the frontage. You may not need one if there is already an adequate crossover in the right place and you are simply resurfacing the driveway behind it.

The width matters too. If your existing dropped kerb is narrower than your new driveway entrance, you will either need to widen the crossover or accept that vehicles have to funnel through the existing width. Around Bournemouth’s older terraced streets in areas like Boscombe, Springbourne and Winton, frontages and crossover widths vary a lot, so this is worth measuring before you plan the driveway layout.

The Application Process

The dropped kerb sits on the public highway, so you apply to the highway authority for permission before any work happens.

For most of the area - Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole - that is BCP Council’s vehicle crossover process{target=“_blank” rel=“noopener noreferrer”}, handled by their highways team. Towns further out - Wimborne, Ferndown, Wareham, Dorchester and the rest - come under Dorset Council or the relevant highway authority, and Ringwood, Lymington and New Milton fall under Hampshire. The principle is the same everywhere: you apply, the authority assesses it, and an approved contractor does the work.

The council checks a few things: that there are safe sight lines for a vehicle pulling out, that the crossing will not sit on or damage buried utilities, and that the footway construction can be built to take vehicles. They may carry out a site visit. Once approved, only a contractor licensed to work on the adopted highway can build the crossover - it is not something you or a general builder can do off your own bat.

How Much A Dropped Kerb Costs

There is no flat rate, because the cost depends heavily on the site.

As a rough guide, expect somewhere in the region of £1,000 to £3,000 or more. What moves it around: the width of the crossing (a double-width drive costs more than a single), the kerb and footway type, whether a grass verge is involved, and whether utilities in the footway need protecting or diverting. On top of the construction, the council charges application and inspection fees. If there is a lamp column, a drain, or a street tree near the proposed crossing, costs and complexity climb.

Because the crossover is on the highway and the driveway is on your land, they are two separate pieces of work with two separate costs. It is worth getting the crossover figure from the council process and an approved contractor early, so the full picture of what a new driveway will cost is clear from the start rather than a surprise near the end.

Rules, Restrictions And When You Cannot

Sometimes a dropped kerb is refused, and it is better to know that up front than to plan a driveway you cannot legally reach.

Common reasons for refusal include inadequate sight lines where a vehicle could not pull out safely, the crossing being too close to a junction or a pedestrian crossing, a road too busy or fast for a new access to be safe, or protected verges and trees in the way. On a classified road, creating the driveway can also trigger the need for planning permission, separate from the highways approval.

There is also the front-garden surfacing rule to keep in mind. Paving over a front garden of more than 5 square metres with an impermeable surface needs planning permission, but a permeable surface like resin bound is exempt - so the driveway surface choice interacts with the planning position. Our guide to resin driveway planning permission in Bournemouth covers that side in full.

Doing It Alongside Your Resin Driveway

The neatest approach is to coordinate the crossover and the driveway so they are designed and built to meet each other.

We install the driveway itself - that is on your land, and it is our job. The dropped kerb is a highways job for an approved contractor, but the two need to line up: the same width, the same levels, and a clean junction between the public crossover and your private surface. Get them out of step and you end up with a lip, a mismatch, or a driveway entrance narrower than the drive behind it.

In practice, we help you plan the driveway around the crossover position and width, and the timing around the council’s lead time, so the whole thing comes together rather than arriving as two disconnected jobs. Because the application takes several weeks, the best time to start thinking about the dropped kerb is at the same time as the driveway, not after.

If you are planning a new resin driveway in Bournemouth and are not sure whether you need a dropped kerb or how it fits together, get in touch for a free site visit and we will talk you through both sides of the job.