Hi,

Hoping someone here can help me regarding the rules, law or at least guidelines around dropped kerbs and vehicle crossings/crossovers. My street has a large green space with grass and trees between the houses and roads on both sides of the street, and my house has a dropped kerb in front of it with a long piece of tarmac leading up to my drive. The lowered kerb and crossover were constructed in 2004 and I was given a receipt for the work by the previous house owner when I purchased the property in 2012. There are neighbours further up the road that have driveways at the front of their properties with a dedicated crossover leading up to their respective drives.

I had a new neighbour move in next door to the attached house to mine (Council house), at the end June 2019 and (without any notification from them or the council) they added a tarmac triangle to the crossover in front of my driveway. I tried to protest this with the Council on the grounds that I wasn't notified of this change of use of the crossover, and questioned whether the guidelines had been followed because I've never seen such an installation anywhere before, and I still cannot find an example. This now means that:

-> I have to share the crossing in and out with the neighbour, being a single car width this means that I cannot use the crossing without having a chance of meeting them on the way in or out. My neighbours properties (see attached screenshots from Google Streetview) have their own dedicated car width to get in and out of their property, even if the crossover are next to each other, there are two car widths;

-> The neighbour vehicle headlights and those of their visitors vehicles are now shining into my front lounge window / bedroom window if they drive in and reverse out at night, even with the curtains shut this is disturbing us. They had a taxi drop them off around Christmas time and it lit up our front bedroom at 1am waking us up, I went outside to tell the taxi driver that he'd woken us up and could he please stop illuminating our bedroom.

-> I do not have to turn my vehicle once I have crossed the lowered kerb and vehicle crossing. The neighbour is now driving almost up to my house before making a sharp turn across the footpath at about a 45' angle. This looks like a hazard to me and I have raised concerns that someone will be run over.

-> The footpath in front of their house has not been underpinned, many cracks have appeared and the condition looks set to continue to worsen. Loose gravel from their drive spills over onto the footpath and crossover and is getting mashed into the tarmac.

-> Highways have now told me the crossover is 'shared access', but I have no written notification of this or easement. This is not like the usual shared access I am familiar with that runs between some older houses (with the garages at the back).

-> They stray off of the original crossover and edge of the new tarmac triangle when they enter and exit their property, this has caused the grass to disappear and left large muddy areas. This reinforces my opinion that what they have had installed is not suitable for purpose.

I have had other antisocial issues with these neighbours (music, their vehicles blocking my driveway, verbal abuse, frequent late and loud parties) and do not speak to them now because of their harassment. The antisocial stuff all started shortly before this tarmac triangle appeared, and so this feels like some sort of spite action from them. I've tried going to the council, highways, their housing officer and the police about all of the issues, but the dropped kerb and crossover I am getting nowhere with. I will add the Highways response when I find it tomorrow, but have attached some photos and Google Streetview images to help show what I have described above. You'll see in some images the tracks in the grass where they previously would drive from the kerb in front of my house, over the grass and between the trees to their property before they added the tarmac triangle.

Does anyone think I should take legal advice over this, or just get on with it? I'm concerned that when I come to sell the house, this will be a problem. Any prospective buyer should wonder why all of the other properties on the street do not have a 'shared' or 'hijacked' crossover? I would love to hear comments from people who have experience with dropped kerbs / crossovers - I appreciate I do not own the land in front of my house, but must query whether there is anything wrong here? Am I just unfortunate to have a selfish neighbour that won't pay the full cost of relocating/replanting trees, additonal widening of the kerb and a long stretch of tarmac in front of their house like the other neighbours? Not sure if I can link to photos here but if I will try and add an external link shortly if that is possible.

Many thanks,


pan7her

P.S. Here is the response from the Council / Highways manager, I can't do bold / italic formatting here so have tried to use ME: and HIGHWAYMAN: label for the responses to questions. Anyone else think that a 'perceived hazard' is the same as an 'actual hazard'? Does anyone know if this would be worth taking further in their experience or dropped kerb and vehicle crossing guidelines, if there are any that is? My family, friends and I have never experienced anything like this before:

-------- Forwarded Message --------

Subject:
NCC-******-19 Highway Amendments - O/S MY ADDRESS, TOWN (HAMS *******)
Date: Tue, 20 Aug 2019 14:37:50 +0000
From: Council Person <council.person@nottscc.gov.uk>
To: me<me>
CC: Councillor Mr Councillor <councillor email address>
Dear ME
You have been in contact with highways colleagues about a shared use access and the possible hazard this presents. The department have responded to you about this on a number of occasions but you remain unhappy with their responses and so they have referred the matter to this team. In respect of your recent email we have asked the District Highways Manager to review this case which he has done. He has provided the following responses highlighted in bold for ease of reference to your further questions which are shown in italics:-

ME: Please see below thread of emails that you have been copied into. I fear that my concerns and queries are falling on deaf ears, and not being taken seriously. If I were questioned on my own work, I too would also back it up. However, does a child have to be knocked over before someone takes this seriously?
Please could someone confirm that Nottinghamshire County Council have absolutely no concerns for the safety of the users of the footway. I have some serious concerns that someone will get injured whilst using the footway in front of the piece of tarmac laid to the side of the vehicle access of MY ADDRESS. An elderly gentleman has already had to give way to my neighbours crossing the footpath to access their driveway at NEXT DOOR, as the driver has no visibility of the footway at the angle that they have to cross the footway at, approx 45 degrees. They have to make 3 maneuvers to get to the main highway.

HIGHWAYMAN: Nottinghamshire County Council takes safety on the County’s road very seriously and actively promotes this. The Authority would not implement features on the highway that may create safety issues and whilst we appreciate your comments, this is a perceived hazard and not an actual one. There are many thousands of shared use accesses right across the County and this is no different to these. The Authority is satisfied that there are no safety issues at the site.

ME: A single shared access would normally be constructed in the middle of the 2 properties, agreed with the 2 parties, construction costs shared and an easement describing the use of the single width shared access. This vehicle access (constructed in July 2003) is directly in front of my property, at the furthest point from joining the neighbours'. There are 3 car lengths to this access, and the laid tarmac is less than 1 car length due to trees. they have to turn almost parallel to the footway and very rarely are they actually able to do so, due to the angles that they have to maneuver. As previously stated below, every other property in MY ROAD that has vehicle access has one crossing per property, and I can only assume that this is due to safety. The piece of tarmac that has been laid to the side of the vehicle access to MY ADDRESS, is so uncommon that I can find no record of anyone having the same.

HIGHWAYMAN: Should we receive any other applications for vehicle accesses on MY ROAD, they will be assessed in the same manner as all applications, as was the case with No NEXT DOOR.

ME: This seems to now be shared access just because COUNCIL CONTRACTOR NAME deem it so. How has this been approved when as COUNCIL CONTRACTOR NAME state below, it is not possible to get a quote for access to a property that is not registered to you, yet the tenants of NEXT DOOR have managed to gain access from a crossing that was not registered to them, but to my address MY ADDRESS.

HIGHWAYMAN: The land in front of your property and your neighbours is adopted highway, that is managed and maintained by the Highways Authority. Please see the attached adoption plan, with the highway highlighted in green. The land / crossing is not registered to either you or your neighbour, as can be seen on the Title Plan for your property (also attached). The crossing is public highway and can be utilised by any highway user, although obviously intended to gain access to the frontage of your property or your neighbours. We do not provide quotations for vehicle accesses to properties where the requestor is either not an occupant, or does not own the property.

ME: Please could someone provide adequate instruction on how this vehicle access is to be used. Who is to give priority to whom and who has right of way? It is not as simple as just saying "give way accordingly". This is now a single lane highway with 2 exits that has no obvious signs for priority, as the access is not directly between the 2 properties, it is in front of my home.

HIGHWAYMAN: As my colleague COLLEAGUE NAME has advised in her previous email: “The vehicle access forms a part of the adopted highway and is a shared use access. Given that the access is only shared with your neighbour, in the unlikely event of you both wishing to use the access at precisely the same time, it will be necessary for you or your neighbour, as licensed drivers, to give way accordingly.”

ME: I would like to find out how this additional piece of tarmac to the side of vehicle access has been approved and under what safety guidelines, as I fear this will cause serious harm and/or injury to the users of the highway and/or footway.

HIGHWAYMAN: This work was approved by myself in the role of District Manager for Broxtowe and as stated previously, the Council is satisfied that there are no safety issues at the site.

ME: I will be contacting the information commissioner’s office regarding the breach of GDPR rules, and sending an email with personal data within, to an external party.

HIGHWAYMAN: We have previously responded to your concerns about GDPR and provided you with the relevant Privacy Notice. You are able to contact the Information Commissioner’s Office at any time and if they decide to pursue this we will of course co-operate with them.

A role of the complaints team is to determine if there is likely to be any change to the situation by putting someone’s complaint through the Council’s complaints process. We can only consider if there has been a fault either within the relevant Council process or actions of workers to follow that protocol in making their decision. The complaints process cannot be used to appeal a decision simply because someone disagrees with that decision. Although we understand that you are unhappy with the decision made by the department, there is no further action we can take through the complaints process to influence the decision and therefore change the outcome. I am sorry we cannot assist you further to resolve your complaint but hope you accept the explanation given why we will not be able to take any further action to resolve these matters for you.
If you disagree with my response not to follow up your complaint you can contact the Local Government Ombudsman (LGO) for advice and their advice team can be contacted on 0300 061 0614 http://www.lgo.org.uk/making-a-complaint PO Box 4771, Coventry, CV4 0EH.
Regards

COUNCIL PERSON NAME
Complaints and Information Officer
Complaints and Information Team.
Tel: 0115 9******