Appeal 3304449

The appeal is dismissed.

The main issue in this appeal is the effect of the proposed development on highway safety.

No. [site address] (No.217) is a two-storey semi-detached dwelling situated on the north side of [address] close to its junction with [address]. [address] is a classified road accessed directly from the A10. No.217 has an existing 4.8m wide double vehicle crossover that is shared with its non-attached neighbour. It is proposed to widen this existing crossover by 1.83m to allow an additional vehicle to park on the hardstanding to the front of the dwelling.

Policy DMD46 of Enfield’s Development Management Document (2014) (DMD) states that planning permission for new access onto ‘A’ roads and other busy classified roads will not normally be permitted. ‘Other busy classified’ roads are defined as those carrying more than 10,000 vehicles per day (two-way) and there is no dispute between the parties that [address] falls within this category. The Council’s Transportation Team have objected to the appeal proposal on the basis that DMD Policy DMD46 resists all but the most exceptional applications in order to prevent danger on the highway network, considered to occur from even a single additional crossover.

DMD Policy DMD46 further sets out criteria (a to h) against which vehicle crossovers and dropped kerbs to allow for off-street parking will be assessed. I accept that the proposal would meet some of the criterion of DMD Policy DMD46. However, importantly, it would not be possible for vehicles to enter and exit the proposed widened crossover in forward gear (criterion f). The supporting paragraph to the Policy recognises that this is particularly important on classified roads because the ability to turn on site negates the need for vehicles to reverse across a footway and onto busy roads, which can create a road safety hazard. The guidance in the Council’s Revised Technical Standards for [name] (2013) is that the acceptability of this arrangement is likely to depend on the level of visibility along both carriageway and footway, the volume of traffic and width of the road.

At the time of my site visit on a weekday morning, I observed [address] to be very busy with a constant flow of traffic and vehicles queuing westbound to join the A10 junction. On this section of [address] there is unrestricted parking on either sides of the road and I observed few unoccupied spaces, including directly outside No.217. The result of this is a fairly limited road width and also restricted visibility from the existing crossover of No.217 particularly looking eastbound.

I acknowledge that applications will be assessed on a case by case basis and that ‘ideally’ vehicles should be able to enter and leave a site in forward gear ‘where practical.’ However, although I observed vehicles speeds to be fairly low, given the high volume of traffic, on street parking and the width of the road, it would be very difficult to safely reverse onto the highway in this location. I therefore find that widening the crossover to allow an additional vehicle would have an adverse impact on road safety, therein conflicting with DMD Policy DMD46 (d and f). Further, albeit the widened crossover would serve a single dwelling, any increase in the frequency of vehicle movements onto [address] in this location (particularly those reversing onto the highway) would be to the detriment of the free flow of traffic.

The widening of the existing vehicle crossover would also result in the loss of an on-street parking bay to the front of No.217. I saw on my site visit that this part of [address] already experiences reasonably high on-street parking demand despite a number of dwellings benefitting from forecourt parking and the loss of an on-street parking bay would exacerbate this situation.

Consequently, I find the proposal would cause significant harm to highway safety and would be contrary to criterion (c), (d), (e) and (f) of DMD Policy DMD 46 and paragraph 111 of the National Planning Policy Framework. It would also conflict with Policy CP24 and CP30 of the Enfield Plan Core Strategy 2010-2015 (2010) and DMD Policy DMD37 which together require development to create safe places.

For the reasons given above, I conclude that the appeal should be dismissed.