Dropped Kerbs and Vehicle Crossings in Lincoln: What It Costs and Who to Apply To

There is a particular sinking feeling that comes from standing on a brand new driveway you cannot legally reach. It happens more often in Lincoln than you would think, usually because the surface and the access were treated as one job when they are actually two, handled by two different councils, on two different timescales. Around 8 in 10 of the enquiries we take that involve a front garden conversion have not yet looked into the kerb, and a fair few of those assume the drive itself is the hard part. It is not. The drive takes a few days. The permission to cross the pavement can take six weeks and cost as much as a small car. Here is how the Lincoln version of it works, what the current numbers actually are, and where to slot it into the sequence.

Two Councils, One Driveway

The pavement outside your house is not yours. It is highway, and in Lincoln the highway authority is Lincolnshire County Council rather than City of Lincoln Council. That single fact explains most of the confusion. People ring the city council about a driveway, get a perfectly correct answer about planning and permitted development, and come away believing the whole thing is settled.

City of Lincoln Council deals with whether you are allowed to build the drive. Lincolnshire County Council deals with whether you are allowed to cross the footway to get to it. Neither one checks up on the other. You can hold a lawful development certificate for a permeable resin bound driveway and still have no legal way of driving onto it.

The relevant law is Section 184 of the Highways Act 1980, and it is worded around the act of driving over the footway rather than around the kerb stones themselves. That matters on the streets around Lincoln where there is no raised kerb at all, just a flush verge. No kerb to drop does not mean no permission needed.

What Lincolnshire County Council Charges in 2026

Take the simplest route first, where the county council does the work itself. The published figures are an application fee of £300, a further £125 if an existing kerb line has to come out, and a construction estimate of £2,500 to £3,500 for the crossing itself.

That upper figure surprises people, and it is worth understanding why it is where it is. A vehicle crossing is not a few kerbs turned on their side. The footway build-up underneath gets taken out and replaced with something that carries wheel loads, the kerb line is reset with proper transition stones at each end, any ironwork in the way has to be dealt with, and the whole lot has to be done under traffic management on a live street. The council also takes the finished crossing on as its own asset afterwards, which is why it is fussy about how it goes in.

Set against a resin drive costing a few thousand, the access can easily be a third of the total project. Budget it at the start, not when the quote for the surface has already been accepted. Full details of the process sit on Lincolnshire County Council’s dropped kerb pages, including the application form itself.

Doing It Through a Private Contractor Instead

The second route is to have an approved contractor build the crossing, with the council permitting and inspecting rather than digging. Here the council’s fee changes shape: £470 for a light-duty domestic access, £940 for heavy-duty or commercial, and £235 for a field access, a temporary access or an alteration to something already there.

Note that the domestic fee is higher than the £300 you pay when the council does the work. That is not a mistake. In the first case you are buying a job, in the second you are buying oversight, and oversight of somebody else’s operatives on a live highway is not cheap to provide. What you gain is control of the build cost and the programme, which is usually where the savings sit.

Your contractor has to clear two hurdles before the council will entertain them. They need public liability insurance of at least £10 million, and every operative on the job needs New Roads and Street Works Act accreditation. The county maintains a directory of contractors already approved to work in Lincolnshire, and starting from that list is far quicker than trying to get a favourite local builder signed off from scratch. Most resin installers, ourselves included, are surfacing specialists rather than street works contractors, so the crossing is normally a separate trade even when everything else on the job is one team.

The Classified Road Trap

If your house fronts a classified road, an A, B or C route, you need planning permission for the access before the highways application will go anywhere. The county council’s form asks for the reference number, and without one the application stalls.

In Lincoln this catches a specific set of streets. Anything on Newark Road, Wragby Road, Burton Road, Nettleham Road, Canwick Road and the other radial routes out of the city is worth checking properly rather than assuming. These are exactly the roads with the long Edwardian and interwar frontages where people most often want to convert a front garden, and they are also the roads where the highway engineers are most careful about visibility and about cars reversing out into traffic.

On an ordinary unclassified residential street it is a different story and permission is usually not needed. The Planning Portal’s guidance on dropped kerbs sets out the distinction, and if you want it settled in writing, a lawful development certificate from City of Lincoln Council’s planning service does the job. Our separate guide to planning permission for a driveway in Lincoln covers the surface side of the same question.

Drainage Boards, Verges and the Lincolnshire Extras

Here is the bit that does not appear on generic advice written for anywhere else in the country. The application form asks whether you need approval from a drainage board, and in Lincolnshire that question has teeth. Internal Drainage Boards manage watercourses across a large part of the county, and if there is a board-maintained drain or a ditch between your boundary and the carriageway, the crossing involves piping or bridging it. That is a consent in its own right, obtained from the board, and it takes as long as it takes.

Properties on the edges of the city and out along the Witham and the Fossdyke are the likely candidates, along with a lot of the villages people commute in from. If there is a dip, a ditch or a culvert head anywhere near your frontage, raise it at the start.

The other Lincolnshire quirk is verges. A grass verge with no kerb still counts as footway for these purposes, and forming an access across one means excavating and building the same load-bearing construction, plus dealing with whatever the verge was quietly draining. It is not the cheap option it looks like.

Why Applications Get Turned Down

Most refusals come down to something physically in the way, and the council is explicit about two of them. A tree within one metre of the proposed crossing is a problem, and utility apparatus or street furniture within one metre, a lamp post, a signal box, a bin store, a stopcock, may restrict what can be built.

Street trees are the common one in Lincoln. The avenues on the West End and the interwar estates north of the city were planted generously, and a mature lime or cherry sitting a few feet off the kerb line does not move for a driveway. Roots run further than the canopy suggests, so even a tree that looks clear of the opening can rule it out.

The other frequent cause is geometry. There has to be somewhere to actually stand the car. A crossing that leads to a space too short to hold a vehicle clear of the footway will not be approved, because the practical result is a car overhanging the pavement. Somewhere around four metres of usable depth is the point at which this stops being a conversation, and shallow Victorian front gardens in Lincoln often sit right on that line. Worth measuring before you spend anything.

Fitting It Around the Resin Drive

Order of operations decides whether this is smooth or miserable. The council aims to respond to an application within ten working days, and you cannot ask for a start date sooner than 21 days away or further out than 90 days. So the sensible sequence is: measure the depth, check the road classification, get any planning or drainage consent moving, submit the crossing application, and only then book the surfacing.

The crossing should ideally go in first, or at worst on the same programme, because the finished crossing sets the level your drive has to meet at the boundary. Lay the resin first and you are committed to whatever levels you chose, and if the crossing then comes in a little high or low you get a lip at the entrance that will annoy you every single day.

Standard crossing width is 2.75 metres, or three centre kerbs. If you want more than that, for a double frontage or to swing a caravan in, ask for it on the application. Widening one afterwards means going back through the whole process a second time, and paying for it a second time too.

Not sure which way your frontage falls? Get a free quote for a resin driveway in Lincoln. We will say at the site visit whether the access looks straightforward, borderline or a non-starter, before you have spent a penny on it.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who do I apply to for a dropped kerb in Lincoln?

Lincolnshire County Council, because it is the highway authority for the Lincoln area. City of Lincoln Council handles planning matters, but the pavement outside your house belongs to the county, so the vehicle crossing application goes there. The two are separate processes and one does not tell the other what you are doing, which is why some people end up with a driveway they cannot legally drive onto.

How much does a dropped kerb cost in Lincolnshire?

If Lincolnshire County Council builds it, the application is £300, removing the existing kerb line adds £125, and the council’s own estimate for the construction work is £2,500 to £3,500. If you use your own approved contractor instead, the council charges £470 for a domestic light-duty application, £940 for heavy-duty or commercial, and £235 for field, temporary or alteration works, with the build cost then agreed directly with the contractor.

Do I need planning permission for a dropped kerb in Lincoln?

Only if your house is on a classified road, meaning an A, B or C road. On an unclassified residential street it is usually not required, though some homeowners apply for a lawful development certificate so they have something in writing. Where planning permission is needed, get it before the highways application rather than after, because the county council’s form asks for the reference number.

How wide does a vehicle crossing have to be?

Lincolnshire County Council’s standard is 2.75 metres, which works out as three centre kerbs plus the transition kerbs at either end. That comfortably takes one car. If you want a wider opening, say for a double drive or a caravan, it needs to be agreed as part of the application rather than assumed, and it will change the price.

How long does a dropped kerb application take in Lincolnshire?

The council aims to respond within ten working days of receiving the application. That is a response rather than a finished crossing. You also cannot request a start date less than 21 days away or more than 90 days ahead, so from first form to vehicle on the drive, six to ten weeks is a realistic window if nothing needs revisiting.

Can I just drive over the kerb until the crossing is done?

No. Driving a vehicle across a footway or verge without the highway authority’s permission is an offence under Section 184 of the Highways Act 1980. Beyond the legal side, a standard footway is not built for wheel loads, so you will crack the flags and possibly damage whatever cable or pipe sits underneath, and the repair bill lands with you.