A homeowner has been told she could be breaking the law by parking on her own driveway in Merseyside.

Helen Maloney, of Emmanuel Road, Southport, said she received a letter from Sefton Council as she does not have a dropped kerb and has to drive over the pavement.

About 20 Sefton residents had been sent similar letters, the council said.

The homeowners had been asked to take the "necessary corrective action", a spokesman for Sefton Council said.

The Local Democracy Reporter Service said the letter told residents to "construct a crossing" if they wanted to continue parking on their drives.

Failure to comply could result in the council carrying out the work by default - and recovering the full cost from homeowners.

Ms Maloney said: "The letter said I can't park on my own driveway because I don't have a dropped kerb.

"Apparently, by driving over the pavement in front of my house to get on to my drive, I am breaking the Highways Act."

A spokesman for Sefton Council said: "The continuous driving over pavements can lead to the damage of a footway creating uneven surfaces which can also lead to trip hazards.

"This resident has since been in touch with us with the view of resolving the matter and we await further contact with her."

Ms Maloney could use the Highways Act 1980 in defence to Sefton Council to clarify the terminology used in the Act :- Section 184
Vehicle crossings over footways and verges.
(1)
Where the occupier of any premises adjoining or having access to a highway maintainable at the public expense habitually takes or permits to be taken a mechanically propelled vehicle across a kerbed footway or a verge in the highway to or from those premises, the highway authority for the highway may, subject to subsection (2) below, serve a notice on the owner and the occupier of the premises.


Ask for clarification, what constitutes 'habitual' as determined in law, as far as I can recollect there have been no successful prosecutions.

Originally Posted by Wittybebop

Although I partly agree with what sloop-john-b has written, if she is a creature of habit of which most humans are then I'd say if the council got a few photos of her over a week bouncing up and down the kerb in the car, I'd think they would have a pretty strong case against her.

Still needs to be 'proved in law'; as I say, as far as I recollect there's no case law to prove the terminology 'habitual' and I can't see Sefton Council pursuing an action which has been a long time on statute.

However all is not lost because Sefton, if they can be bothered, can use an old local county borough by law if they care to exercise their authority or know where to look.

Pay like everyone else has to ?

Probably best to drop your kerb if you have a driveway as people can park over /across your gateway stopping you getting in and out of your property as technically they are not parking over your driveway as you haven't got one if the kerb is not lowered.
Why all of a sudden are the council getting onto this?, well its probably a money making exercise as they will be the only ones that can do the work as its their kerbstones and there will be some kind of planning fees and suchlike so the choice is pay them to do it or they will make you pay them to do it as they know you drive over the pavement as it is. I wonder if people in the same area who don't have cars and haven't had their kerbs dropped got letters asking them to do it, probably not as the council would have sent a snoop out to spy on driveways so as to see who to target so they know they will get paid.
I wonder how much they want from each of the 20 recipients of those letters, anyone know the cost of dropping a kerb?,£500, maybe £1000?, more even? I shudder to think.

As lippychick says, why not just pay the money like everyone else has done, if you see a dropped kerb then either it was built like that, or the homeowner has paid the highways dept to provide one....there's nothing new in this.
If you don't pay then you may find your drive blocked, and a friend of mine who worked for Sefton's highways told me that they use this technique, whether your car is on the drive or not. See other councils doing this in this Daily Mail article. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...dle-night.html

At least the lady has reversed parked in her driveway. Much safer when exiting.

Pay the money. This should have been payed and done when the driveway was originally constructed.

Many years ago in the days of Southport without Sefton we had a man from the council riding the streets of Southport writing down addresses with driveways and without a drop kerb then the homeowner would get the letter about having the kerb lowered. I agree they should pay, I had to

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/10...lth-and-safety


https://www.liverpoolecho.co.uk/news...-told-15039676



and the other picture shows the council cant even be bothered sweeping the road !!!

At the time we were a 2 car household we took our front wall down giving us a double drive, half had a dropped drive the other didn't. Never had an issue from the council but decided to have the other half dropped so rang the council to ask about the process/cost. After giving them my address I was told that my road (cul-de-sac) was due to be resurfaced a couple of months later.

As I was told the work began, my road was resurfaced, new kerb stones and the level of the kerb stones lowered for the full length of the road at all properties with or without drives to allow car access onto our drives, they even replaced 6 cracked flagstones on my drive as they said it would look untidy when they laid the tarmac against the broken flags.

Cost to residents nothing, no complaints from us.

Originally Posted by sloop-john-b

Still needs to be 'proved in law'; as I say, as far as I recollect there's no case law to prove the terminology 'habitual' and I can't see Sefton Council pursuing an action which has been a long time on statute.

However all is not lost because Sefton, if they can be bothered, can use an old local county borough by law if they care to exercise their authority or know where to look.

ANPR tells all about vehicle usage, perhaps you've never heard of it. I don't think even Sefton Council are naïve enough to think someone buys a car to exhibit it on their house frontage.

Originally Posted by Little Londoner

ANPR tells all about vehicle usage, perhaps you've never heard of it. I don't think even Sefton Council are naïve enough to think someone buys a car to exhibit it on their house frontage.

This is a tactic used by some people to indicate the house is occupied whilst they are on holiday.

Many years ago, at a previous address, I paid for a pavement crossing from Southport CBC when I installed a garage. 15 years later the pavement was tarmaced by Sefton MBC on top of the Victorian 9" tiles and the flagstones from the crossing, which were allegedly protecting any cables underneath the pavement, were removed leaving just the leading edges. At the same time the edges were lowered for many other houses on the same street where garages could conceivably be installed in the future.

I'm sure driving backwards and forwards over the kerb every day can't be doing the car any good. It might also be a problem when they come to sell the house. As others have said, the best solution is to just pay to have the kerb dropped.