Highways and access

You will always need approval from the Local Highways Authority if:

  • You are looking to create a new vehicular access or dropped kerb
  • You would like to lower a kerb to create a vehicular crossing over a pedestrian pathway. This includes extensions and changes to dropped kerbs

This is separate from any planning permission that may also be needed. Suffolk County Council is the Local Highways Authority for Babergh and Mid Suffolk. Criteria and instructions on how to apply can be found on their website.

Installing an EV charger if you park on the road

If you live in a property where there is no area which can be lawfully used for off-street parking, which is often the case for terraced properties where parking is on-street only, then you will need planning permission for any type of EV charger.

If you need to install a cable channel through the pavement to facilitate this please apply to Suffolk County Council for your EV channel license.

Once you have obtained this, you should apply for Householder planning permission from the District Council. When filling in the application form, you should sign Certificate B and serve notice on any landowners whose land is included in your red line, including Suffolk County Council.

Apply for Householder planning permission

The timescale for determination is 6 to 8 weeks.

Apply for planning permission

This will cost £272.

Installing an EV charger if you park lawfully off-road

Schedule 2, Part 2 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (as amended): Class D - electrical outlet for recharging vehicles

If you park in an area lawfully used for off-street parking, it is likely that the installation of an EV home charger will fall under permitted development rights.

As such no planning application is required for its installation, providing it does not:

  • exceed 0.2 cubic metres
  • face onto and be within two metres of a highway
  • lie within a site designated as a scheduled monument
  • lie within the curtilage of a listed building

Schedule 2, Part 2 of the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 (as amended): Class E - electrical upstand for recharging vehicles

When installing an upstand with a mounted electrical charging outlet, either at your home or elsewhere, within an area lawfully used for off-street parking, the upstand and outlet must not:

  • exceed 2.3 metres in height from the level of the surface used for the parking of vehicles. This limit is 1.6 metres where in the curtilage of a dwellinghouse or block of flats
  • be within two metres of a highway
  • be within a site designated as a scheduled monument
  • be within the curtilage of a listed building
  • result in more than one upstand being provided for each parking space
For both Class D and Class E, when the electrical outlet is no longer required as a charging point for electric vehicles, the wall (on which the outlet was mounted) or the land (on which the upstand was placed) must be returned to its previous condition (prior to the installation being carried out) as soon as possible.

Works to Classified Roads

You may need planning permission in addition to highways consent if the highway involved is a Classified Road. This is a road that has been given a classification to stress its importance to the highway network.

In most cases, it involves the road name being prefixed with an A, B or C (for example the A12).

A and B roads are part of the national classification system. C roads, which are also classified roads, are marked as such by the Local Highways Authority.

Find out the classification of a road

Consulting the Highways Authority on a Planning Application

For any application where the highway is involved, the Highways Authority is a statutory consultee in the planning process. For applications affecting a major road network the LPA (Local Planning Authority) may consult National Highways.

Consultees can only make recommendations to the LPA. The final decision on whether a development is granted planning permission is made by the LPA.

If the Highways Authority considers that the development will adversely affect the highway - and this impact can’t be reduced - it can recommend refusal.

Note: The Highways Authority can’t make the final decision on whether a planning application is approved or refused. This is the LPA's role. However, the Highways Authority may not allow access to the public highway if it considers the proposal to be unsafe. This can be done regardless of any decision made by the LPA.

The views and decisions by the respective authorities on planning applications must be justified. In an appeal, they could be judged by the Planning Inspector to have acted unreasonably. Costs could then be awarded against the authority.

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