Appeal 3367361

The appeal is allowed, and planning permission is granted for a dropped kerb for vehicular access at [site address] in accordance with the terms of the application, [name]/2025/0000773/HHA, subject to the following condition: The development hereby permitted shall be completed in accordance with the following approved plans: the OS location plan and plan Ref TQRQM25100112019704.

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

The appeal property is a mid-terrace dwelling standing on the northern frontage of [address] (the Lane), which is a busy classified road. The property is relatively close to the Lane’s traffic lit junction with the A45, a major inter-urban road. Parking restrictions in the form of double yellow lines apply on this part of the Lane.

In common with the dwellings either side, the appeal property’s front garden has been hard surfaced, and when I visited all were used for parking. The Council raises no objection to the proposed hard surfacing, given that only one reason for refusal is cited. Nor does the officer report appear to recognise that the former front garden is already used for parking, and I have therefore assumed that the reason for the proposal is to legitimise it. On the opposite side of the Lane, dwellings which have not had their front gardens converted to parking areas are the very much the exception.

The council’s refusal is based on the Highways Authority’s concern at the prospect of vehicular conflict arising from reversing movements when entering or leaving the parking space. However, no account appears to have been taken of the significant number of such manoeuvres which must have taken place along both frontages of the Lane in recent years. No evidence has been submitted that such manoeuvres have probed problematical or resulted in a significant number, indeed of a single accident along this stretch of the Lane.

In the absence of such evidence and taking account of the prevalence of front garden conversions to parking in this part of the Lane, I consider the additional risk posed by this development to highway safety to be minimal, and insufficient to warrant a refusal of planning permission. I am also mindful of the National Planning Policy Framework’s policy guidance that development should only be prevented or refused on highways grounds if there would be an unacceptable impact on highway safety.

I conclude that the proposal would not result in an unacceptable impact on highway safety. Whilst the Council cite policies AC2 and AC3 of the Coventry Local Plan in their reason for refusal neither of the policies appears to be directly relevant in the context of this appeal. I shall therefore give significant weight to the Framework’s guidance, already referred to, as a material consideration.

I have noted the Council’s suggested conditions, but since the development appears to have already been begun the normal statutory condition on timing is considered unnecessary. In the interests of certainty, it is important that the development is completed in accordance with the approved plans, and a condition to this effect is imposed.

All other matters raised in the representations have been considered, but none is of such strength or significance as to outweigh the considerations leading to my