Fighting a planning application that will affect a conservation area

[Salamander]

I am fighting a planning application which involves adding a new access road immediately adjacent to a residential driveway on a busy main road. The access road would serve a new development of approximately 65 houses and will have an adverse impact on the nearby conservation area, and the daily volume of traffic passing within a few feet of the existing house would be considerable.

I have found reference to Department for Transport regulations stating that a proposed new driveway with a dropped kerb cannot be located within 10 metres of an existing road junction, but despite exhaustive internet searches, two unanswered emails to my local Highways department and an unanswered letter to DfT, I have been unable to find out if this regulation would also apply when the driveway already exists and the road junction would be new, as with this planning application.

As additional safety risks to road users would be caused by a driveway and a road junction being too close to each other, it should in theory make no difference which 'highway feature' came first, so I feel it is reasonable to assume that the 10 metre rule should also be applicable in respect of a proposed new road junction.

Please note that in order to effectively challenge this application, I need a copy of the official and current UK Government regulations covering the proximity of a new road junction to an existing driveway, and an internet link to this would be ideal. A personal opinion is sadly not sufficient in these circumstances.

The deadline for comments is imminent and any usable information will be greatly appreciated - if the access cannot get planning permission, the conservation area will be safe.

 

[a twig]

Speaking from experience, if the Council Highways team say it’s fine you’re on a hiding to nothing as a lay person.

Unless you’re prepared to commission a safety study from some suitably accredited consultancy or designer who can model the new layout based on existing traffic flows and volumes and predict an uptick in incidents / injuries, it will be down to whatever result is spat out by their methodology.

I used to work more on national infrastructure so the Design Manual for Roads and Bridges (DMRB) was the reference document, guessing your road isn’t a trunk road owned by National Highways so that wouldn’t apply.

You could try the Manual for Streets? https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/5a7e0035ed915d74e6223743/pdfmanforstreets.pdf

 

[a twig]

There is also TD 42/95 but I don’t know if that has been superceded:

Right - it has been superceded so this CD 123 might be your only hope, if there isn’t something in here that specifically says “no can do” then you are likely in the realms of needing studies and modelling:

HTML Document View

Design Manual for Roads and Bridges

standardsforhighways.co.uk

 

[Salamander]

Thanks for your replies - the affected route is a de-trunked 'A Road'. I did have a look at Manual for Streets, but couldn't see anything relevant. CD 123 may be more useful in terms of junction visibility, but I've not found anything relating to the position of a new junction in respect of an existing driveway. I'll try to sort out and post a visual reference of the plan shortly.

 

[Salamander]

Rough drawing indicates the proximity of the existing driveway (shown in red) to the mouth of the proposed new access road.
There's no space between the two features. Surely this can't be acceptable?

 

[a twig]

Assuming that is hatching all the way along then both the driveway and the access would be “left in left out” so arguably pretty safe as people pulling out will always be looking in the direction of any possible traffic coming. The only challenge could be visibility (which was covered in the previous docs), if someone is pulling out of that access road how easily could they see someone pulling out of the driveway?

The priority wouldn’t be clear as who “goes first” from the driveway or the access road but from a safety case it would be a very low speed collision so wouldn’t score very highly on negative outcomes.

It definitely is ugly though and not optimal. What’s the speed limit on the main road?

 

[paulc]

Assuming that is hatching all the way along then both the driveway and the access would be “left in left out” so arguably pretty safe as people pulling out will always be looking in the direction of any possible traffic coming.

Having been hit by some idjit not even bothering to look right before pulling out, don't count on it being safe.

 

[Salamander]

The hatching tapers to a point to the right of the diagram. The 'open' section of the centre markings is the queuing and right turning lane into the access. The access is also ''right in, right out'' across the ghost island, which being only 3.5 metres across isn't wide enough for any car apart from a few 'A-segment' models such as Smart 3-door, etc. to wait on without overhanging into the eastbound and westbound carriageways. I can see a conflict with vehicles turning right from the main road into the access at the same time as those turning left from the red driveway. The posted 30 mph limit is regarded as 'optional' by most drivers at that point. Visibility is poor - the access would be on the brow of a hill and on a bend. Diagram updated accordingly - ''right in, right out'' is a potential conflict area I think. Diagram has been rotated to make the issues easier to picture. Hope this is clear - I'm a tad battle-weary after fighting this for well over a year!

 

[Stevers]

Unfortunately the presumption, even in a conservation area, will be for development.

We did manage to stop the block of flats, then the five town houses, but three houses without gardens and inadequate parking still got built.

With a declining birth rate in the UK you have to wonder why all these houses are necessary...

 

[a twig]

The hatching tapers to a point to the right of the diagram. The 'open' section of the centre markings is the queuing and right turning lane into the access. The access is also ''right in, right out'' across the ghost island, which being only 3.5 metres across isn't wide enough for any car apart from a few 'A-segment' models such as Smart 3-door, etc. to wait on without overhanging into the eastbound and westbound carriageways. I can see a conflict with vehicles turning right from the main road into the access at the same time as those turning left from the red driveway. The posted 30 mph limit is regarded as 'optional' by most drivers at that point. Visibility is poor - the access would be on the brow of a hill and on a bend. Diagram updated accordingly - ''right in, right out'' is a potential conflict area I think. Diagram has been rotated to make the issues easier to picture. Hope this is clear - I'm a tad battle-weary after fighting this for well over a year!
View attachment 15063

Gotcha - great diagram, yep that is a horrendously poor design, the main conflict will be the red left out from the drive way vs the purple right in from the main road as there is no clear priority so likely both cars would try to “go” when there is a gap in traffic. The green vs purple is normal and purple has right of way so no real case there I’m afraid.

The optimum solution to solve it would be a mini roundabout offset slightly upwards (in the second diagram) from the current line of the road which would extend the driveway out slightly to become a spoke of the mini roundabout. This would also have the added benefit of calming the speeding traffic but no idea if the land would be available to do so.

That said, given the points about the brow of the hill and the bend you could definitely reference the vision at junction regulations and point out it will not achieve them and this would apply irrelevant of the driveway being there or not. Feels like two separate points in the objection, 1) not meeting visibility distances and 2) conflict with existing driveway access.

for the council highways team being on the ball. Any active user routes about (Walkers, Cyclists, Horses) that would also be affected? Protecting those is very in vogue at the moment.

 

[a twig]

If you can pull up any incident data that shows the road is already not particularly safe that will also help as there is an obligation that new road developments cannot worsen the safety situation and should aim for betterment.

 

[Salamander]

- Re the mini-roundabout suggestion, fortunately the land opposite has a continuous row of houses. A shared driveway for two of them is in line with the right hand lane of the new access, so vehicles turning right from it risk head-on impacts with those turning right from the access.

- The applicant has unsurprisingly tried to claim that all the accident history in the vicinity is due to 'driver error'. There was a bad one in July at the 3-arm traffic light controlled junction approx.100 yards to the right of the access which resulted in two cars being written off, and police and ambulance being in attendance. This collision was due to the traffic light sequencing being incorrect.

- Objectors are arguing that the new access cannot possibly have a positive or even a neutral effect on the road. The only outcome has to be negative.

- The access design has recently had a stage 1 Road Safety Audit which basically checked very little and I was shocked to discover that the real testing of a new junction's safety doesn't happen until Stage 3 - after it's built! Stage 4 would then assess the causes of any accidents and suggest 'remedial measures', which might come too late for some...

- The application should also by rights fail as being contrary to Policy HOU1. The applicant is trying to claim that the land is a 'windfall' / 'infill' plot, but it's neither. It fails to meet the 'windfall' definition as the site recently had HVI status removed following a long campaign by the landowner. It fails the 'infill' definition as the site is open on three sides and has never been built on.

- There's no unmet housing need due to a huge development in progress a few hundred yards away that will have 5,500 homes when complete.

- The access would create a crossing hazard for pedestrians using the current, unbroken pathway and those accessing the footpaths in the conservation area.

 

[a twig]

I’d disagree slightly on the Road Safety Audit, stage 1 is a very high level flagging of risk, which then informs the detailed design. You can’t do a full assessment without having a detailed design so it kind of is what it is. The RSA level 1 also dictates what additional land might be required by the scheme to deliver it safely, hence why it is done before planning. From what you’ve said there isn’t any additional land available, so it is all a bit moot.

Stage 2 is the examination of the detailed design and that’s where junction layout, signage etc is considered so that’s the one where most of the points raised in this thread would be reviewed. That often takes place after planning so you could push for planning assent to be conditional on successful passing of Stage 2?

 

[a twig]

At the end of the day all you can do is point all this stuff out, and then see where the decision by the planners ends up - if you dislike their decision then you can fund an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate (usually involving a fair few £k of legal fees) and if that still doesn’t go your way then it’s judicial review territory £££k

From the points you have made it seems like a pretty strong case against so

 

[Flyfisher]

Speaking from experience, if the Council Highways team say it’s fine you’re on a hiding to nothing as a lay person.

Unless you’re prepared to commission a safety study from some suitably accredited consultancy or designer who can model the new layout based on existing traffic flows and volumes and predict an uptick in incidents / injuries, it will be down to whatever result is spat out by their methodology.

Also speaking from limited amateur experience, rather than professional experience, it wouldn't surprise me if the developer have not already commissioned an independent "safety study from some suitably accredited consultancy" specifically to 'prove' that the proposed road layout is acceptable and to get the council highways team to agree. Highways will happily support such a report as it absolves them of responsibility and they have done their job of ensuring the issue has been properly considered.

If, perchance, the developer has not funded such an independent study then any objectors should be prepared for them to do so.

 

[Flyfisher]

If you can pull up any incident data that shows the road is already not particularly safe that will also help as there is an obligation that new road developments cannot worsen the safety situation and should aim for betterment.

"Not particularly safe" is not always easy to prove, or at least be accepted.

One of the roads into our village has a reasonably sharp bend just before it enters the village. The 60mph speed limit drops to 40mph AFTER the bend and over the years has caught out motorists resulting in accidents, often make worse due to a drainage ditch and lampost on the bend. One particularly bad year about 5 years ago, there were three accidents of which two were fatal motorbikes.

The parish council applied to highways to move the 40mph limit and road sign about 100 yards further back so that it was before the bend and would be placed next to the village sign. After much correspondence, highways refused the proposed move because of funding issues - not so much the actual cost of relocating the sign but because it would have required an independent study to confirm the existing risk and a theoretical study to predict the level of safety improvement. Apparently, a record of fatal accidents is not enough to get a speed limit moved 100 yards!

 

[a twig]

This will sound pretty brutal but unfortunately it is absolutely the case (I’d like to make it clear that it doesn’t represent my personal views) that systemically a number of low injury accidents plus 2 fatal incidents in a year isn’t necessarily an indication that the road is unsafe.

Accident clusters are a thing in statistics and don’t necessarily mean things are unsafe or have suddenly got worse, hence the need for a study to take a longer look at a) is this a trend or a cluster and what are the causes b) if a solution is required is moving the signposts the best bang for buck.

The paradox behind all road improvement schemes is that congestion is actually very safe as it forces traffic to be very slow, so while you may get a fair number of bumper bashes, they are usually <10mph so very low negative outcomes when quantified. As soon as you fix the congestion traffic speeds increase and so incident numbers may drop but the negative outcomes are more serious hence the overall quantified safety impact can end up higher, so you have to put more mitigation in and suddenly costs start spiralling. The cynic in me it tempted to think that 20mph blanket speed limits across Wales was primarily an attempt to reduce the strain on road improvement/maintenance budgets under the guise of “slow = safe” as hitting a pot hole at 20 mph has a disproportionate reduction in negative impact va doing it at >30 mph

In your particular case given a lot of drivers ignore speed limits anyway, I would suspect moving those signs would not have resolved the issue, and as you say with limited budgets these days, probably not a positive enough BCR (Benefit Cost Ratio) to prioritise it against all the other locations with safety issues. Council Highways teams are notoriously poor at stakeholder communications so I’d also think it likely that you / the parish council were not given the full picture.

 

[a twig]

Sorry for all the essays but one more point, the cost benefit analysis of a road improvement is looked at over the long term (usually 10 years for minor roads and up to 30-40 years for a major scheme on the SRN) which obviously has a significant impact when deciding which ones should be addressed first - ref: my previous point about accident clusters, 2 fatalities in a year is obviously horrendous but to take a hypothetical situation to illustrate, if those were the only 2 fatalities in the last decade then you’re looking at 0.2 fatalities a year, if you completely fix the problem, you’ll “only” save another 2 lives over the next decade if you fix it. As a percentage of the ~16,000 road deaths that will happen nationally over the next 10 years it’s a rounding error, and so you start to get a picture of the challenges faced when allocating road budgets.

 

[a twig]

I’ll shut up now

 

[Flyfisher]

I’ll shut up now

Au contraire, it's always good to hear a better informed view and everything you say makes sense, in the grand scheme of things. And to be fair, those two fatalities were a 'spike' but all three accidents happened in the space of a couple of summer months so they got a lot of attention.

The frustration at the time though was that the PC offered to move the roadsign themselves and relocate it back to the "Welcome to . . ." village sign position, which seemed the logical place for the legal limit to change in the first place.

Hey ho.