Driveway guide
Dropped kerb cost: what it comes to, and how to get one approved
Dropped kerb cost is the part of a new drive people find out about last, and occasionally it is the part that stops the job. Crossing a footway in a vehicle without an approved crossing is not allowed, so a drive with no dropped kerb is a patio with a car-shaped ambition. Before my team and I price a driveway installation that needs one, the first question is whether the highway authority will permit it at all.
What the dropped kerb cost is made of
Two separate payments, and they go to different places. The council charges an application or inspection fee to assess the crossing and sign it off. The construction itself is priced by whoever does the work, and in most local authorities that has to be a contractor the council has approved for work on the public highway.
| Element | Typical range |
|---|---|
| Council application and inspection fee | £150–£400 |
| Construction, standard 3.6m crossing | £1,000–£2,000 |
| Wider crossing, 4.5m and above | £1,600–£3,000 |
| Statutory service diversion, if needed | £1,000–£5,000+ |
| Verge crossing with drainage works | Add £400–£900 |
The row that ruins budgets is the service diversion. If a gas or water connection, a telecoms chamber or a street lighting column sits where the crossing needs to go, the utility moves it and charges accordingly. Nobody can see that from the pavement, which is another reason the application goes in before the driveway is priced rather than after.
The crossing itself is a proper piece of construction rather than a few kerbs turned on their side. The footway is excavated to a greater depth than a footpath needs, laid on a strengthened base so it carries vehicle loads, and finished with dropped kerb units and transition kerbs either side that bring the level back up to the standard height. That specification is why the construction figure looks high against the length of kerb involved, and it is set by the council rather than by whoever is building it. It also has to tie into the edging on your own drive at the boundary, which is worth agreeing before either is built.
Who you apply to around here
It is the highway authority, not the district or the parish. For the towns my team and I work in that means Milton Keynes City Council for Milton Keynes, West Northamptonshire Council for Northampton, Towcester and Brackley, North Northamptonshire Council for Wellingborough, Bedford Borough Council for Bedford, Central Bedfordshire Council for Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard, Luton Borough Council for Luton, and Buckinghamshire Council for Aylesbury and Buckingham.
Each publishes its own fee, its own approved contractor list and its own application form. Allow several weeks between applying and getting an answer, and longer again if a site visit is needed. It is the longest lead time in a driveway project by a wide margin.
What gets a crossing refused
Refusals are common enough to plan for. The usual reasons are sightlines that do not meet the standard, a position too close to a junction or a pedestrian crossing, a street tree or lighting column in the way, a bus stop or waiting restriction across the frontage, or a frontage too narrow to park a car entirely off the highway. That last one catches a lot of terraced properties: if the car will overhang the footway, the crossing will not be approved.
Approval also tends to come with conditions about the surface behind the kerb, and that is where this connects to the rest of the job. The drive has to be built so that water does not run off it onto the highway, which is the same surface water requirement covered in the planning permission guide and usually met with a permeable surface or a proper drainage design.
Sequencing it so nothing is wasted
Apply first. Get the approval in writing. Then build the drive to the dimensions the approval specifies, and have the crossing constructed by an approved contractor to the council's detail. My team and I coordinate that around the driveway programme so the frontage is only dug once, which is worth more than it sounds when the alternative is a finished drive and a kerb you cannot cross.
If the answer comes back no, you have lost an application fee rather than the cost of a driveway. That is the whole argument for doing it in this order, and the cost guide assumes you have.
Written and reviewed by the PaveLocal team. We build and specify driveways across Northamptonshire, Buckinghamshire and Bedfordshire. Pricing and specification guidance on this page reflects what these jobs cost and involve in this region, not a national average.