How Much Does a Dropped Kerb Cost?

A dropped kerb costs two things: a council application fee of free to £660 (typically around £175.10), and construction of roughly £1,000 to £3,000. The application fee varies enormously by council and most people only discover it after they have budgeted for the driveway. We checked the published fee for 132 UK highway authorities on their own websites — the full table is below, and every figure links to the council page it came from.

What a dropped kerb is, and when you need one

A dropped kerb (your council may call it a vehicle crossover, vehicle crossing or footway crossing) is the lowered section of kerb and strengthened pavement that lets a car drive from the road onto a private driveway. If a vehicle will cross a public pavement or grass verge to reach your drive, you must have the highway authority's approval before the work is done — the pavement usually is not built to take a car's weight, and there can be pipes and cables directly beneath it.

Driving over a kerb that has not been dropped is enforceable: the council can require you to pay for pavement reinstatement, and some issue fines. If you are pricing up a new driveway and it fronts a public footway, treat the crossing as part of the job from day one.

The two costs: application and construction

The application fee covers the council assessing whether a crossing is safe and feasible at your address — visibility, road classification, trees, street furniture and what is under the pavement. Of the 132 authorities we checked, 8 charge nothing to apply, while the most expensive charge over £500. Most fees are non-refundable even if the application is refused, though some councils refund part of it.

Construction is separate and larger. Councils that publish an indicative total put a standard domestic crossing at roughly £1,500 to £3,000:

What moves the construction price: the number of kerb stones being dropped (wider drives cost more), the depth and build-up of the pavement, and above all whether any utility covers or street furniture have to be relocated — moving a telecoms cabinet alone can add £2,000 or more. Some councils build the crossing themselves and quote you directly; others approve it and require you to use an accredited contractor.

Who you actually apply to (it may not be your local council)

The fee is set by the highway authority, and in two-tier parts of England that is the county council, not the district or borough your town is named after. An application in Oxford goes to Oxfordshire County Council; one in Chesterfield goes to Derbyshire County Council. In unitary authorities, metropolitan boroughs, London boroughs, Scotland and Wales, your own council is the highway authority. In Northern Ireland the whole function sits with the Department for Infrastructure rather than any council.

Dropped kerb application fees by council

Fees below were read from each authority's own website and independently re-checked against the live page (last verified 2026-08-07). Where an authority is not listed, it either publishes no application fee — some quote the whole job instead — or we could not confirm a current figure and would rather show nothing than guess. Fee structures differ: some cover just the application, others include inspections, so the "covers" column matters when comparing.

The cheapest and most expensive councils

Free to apply: Hartlepool, Knowsley, Newcastle, North East Lincolnshire, South Lanarkshire, St Helens, Torfaen County, Worcestershire — though "free" only ever means the application; construction is always paid for by the homeowner.

Cheapest paid applications: Darlington (£25), Bolton Metropolitan (£47), Leicester (£50), Nottinghamshire (£52), Leeds (£55.06).

Most expensive: London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham (£660), Devon (£568), Conwy County (£500.11), London Borough of Waltham Forest (£475), Shropshire (£470). The same piece of work, priced 26x apart depending on where you live.

How the process works

1. Check whether you need planning permission first. Usually not on an unclassified residential road, but a crossing onto a classified (A, B or C) road generally needs planning consent before the highway application, and paving more than five square metres of front garden with an impermeable surface needs permission in its own right.
2. Apply to the highway authority and pay the fee. Most councils take applications online. Expect a decision in two to six weeks; many fees are non-refundable if you are turned down, so read the refusal criteria (visibility, parking space depth, proximity to junctions) before paying.
3. Get the construction quoted. Depending on the council this is either their own works team, a contractor from their approved list, or your own accredited contractor working under a separate licence.
4. Build the driveway. The crossing and the driveway surface are separate jobs — see our driveway cost guide for what the surfacing itself costs by material and by city.

Get driveway quotes

If the dropped kerb is part of a bigger driveway job, it usually makes sense to price the whole thing together — many driveway contractors handle the crossing application and build as part of the work.