Hi,
Our house sits on the corner of a 'main' lane (halfway down a cul-de-sac with 20-25 houses), and a small unadopted lane that runs to our house and 7 others. The front of the house and our driveway faces the small unadopted lane, and the length of our garden has a approx. 40m boundary against the other lane bordered by an established hedgerow made up of hawthorne, rhodedendrum, holly,. etc.
I would like to build a garage at the end of the garden which would be accessed from the main lane. This will require making a gap in our hedge for access. It would be infrequently used, though I'm not sure if this is relevant. There is no pavement or kerb stone between the highway and our hedge, the road surface simply buts up against the verge that forms the base of our hedge.
I live in East Sussex and have looked at the highways guidance for dropped kerbs and access, etc. and what they require for visibility splays. From where the access would be, looking out from our property, to the right the main lane bends around in front of you giving good visibility of cars coming from the cul-de-sac. To the left, the road is straight but wouldn't meet visibility splay requirements because of the hedge. On face value it would seem that we would have to remove most of this hedge to meet these requirements, and lose a significant part of our garden in the process.
My questions really are:
Given it is a very minor non-through road, are we likely to be held to these requirements for access?
I assume that despite there being no pavement, kerb, or highways maintained verge, we would still need permission to create a new access?
Are we likely to get permission for a secondary access to the properly (I have read this can be a sticking point)?
Are we more likely to get permission as part of a full planning application rather than via PD and a request to Highways?
Many thanks for any advice that can be offered, I'm really not sure of the best way to approach this!
Mark
