Do I Need Planning Permission for a Driveway in Cornwall?

The five square metre rule

Since 2008, planning permission is needed if you lay more than five square metres of impermeable hard surface between your house and the highway, unless the water drains to a lawn, border or soakaway within your own boundary. Five square metres is roughly one parking space, so almost any real driveway is over the limit.

In practice that means you either use a permeable surface, or you use a standard surface such as tarmac or block paving with proper falls and drainage that keeps every drop of water on your land. Draining onto the road, the pavement or a neighbour's plot is what triggers the need for permission, and it is also what Cornwall Council's enforcement team will act on if a neighbour complains.

• Permeable block paving with a graded open stone sub-base rather than compacted scalpings
• Resin bound gravel laid on a permeable base
• Loose gravel or shingle on a geotextile membrane
• Tarmac or concrete with a linear drain feeding a soakaway sized to the area

When you do need permission

Front garden driveways are treated differently from side or rear access. If your property is a listed building, any driveway change needs listed building consent regardless of surface. In conservation areas such as parts of Charlestown, Mevagissey and Fowey, permitted development rights are often restricted by Article 4 directions, so check with Cornwall Council before ordering materials.

Flats and maisonettes have no permitted development rights for driveways at all. New builds sometimes have rights removed as a planning condition, which is common on estates around St Austell built in the last fifteen years. Your original planning decision notice will say if this applies. Finally, if the driveway is part of a bigger project, such as removing a front wall to create a new access onto a classified road, the access itself needs planning permission and the highways team will want to see visibility splays.

The dropped kerb is a separate application

Planning permission and a dropped kerb are two different things and people mix them up constantly. Even if the driveway itself is permitted development, you cannot legally drive over a footway without a vehicle crossing licence from Cornwall Council Highways. Driving over an unmodified kerb damages the footway and can result in a fine.

The council will inspect the site, check sightlines and the distance to junctions, then either approve it or refuse it. Application fees change, but budget a few hundred pounds for the licence and inspection, then the construction cost on top. On many St Austell roads the pavement has services close to the surface, so the contractor doing the crossing must be on the council's approved list. Allow six to ten weeks from application to work starting, longer if there are streetlights or gullies to move.

What it costs and why drainage matters here

Cornwall gets more rain than most of England and the clay subsoil around St Austell, Roche and Bugle drains slowly. A soakaway that works in Hampshire may sit full for days here, so we normally dig a trial pit and do a simple percolation test before designing drainage. That is not box ticking, it is the difference between a dry drive and a flooded porch.

As a rough guide for a two-car driveway of around 40 square metres, a permeable block paved job typically comes in somewhere between six and nine thousand pounds, loose gravel from around two and a half thousand, and resin bound gravel usually a bit above block paving. The price depends on how much material has to come out, whether we hit rock or old services, access for machinery and how far the spoil has to travel. Get a fixed written quote that names the sub-base depth in millimetres and the drainage arrangement, because that is where cheap driveways cut corners.

• Excavation to at least 200mm below finished level, more on soft ground
• Open graded sub-base of 150mm or more for permeable systems
• Edge restraints haunched in concrete so blocks do not creep
• Percolation test result on file in case the council or a future buyer asks

How to check your own property in ten minutes

Search your address on Cornwall Council's online planning register to see whether your house is listed, in a conservation area or subject to an Article 4 direction. Read the decision notice for your property if it was built after 2000 and look for conditions removing permitted development rights. If anything is unclear, a lawful development certificate from the council gives written proof that no permission is needed, which is worth having when you sell. It is cheaper than a planning application and usually decided within eight weeks.