In most of the region you do not need permission for a resin driveway, because it is permeable. Two things change that answer: a conservation area with an Article 4 Direction, and the dropped kerb — which is a separate application, and refused far more often than the surface.
All ten Greater Manchester boroughs are unitary authorities, so the same council handles planning and the crossing. What they do with that power varies enormously.
Every figure below is what the council publishes itself. Last verified 19 August 2026.
Since 2008 the test has been whether water can get through the surface. Get that right and the size of the driveway stops mattering.
Councils across the region add their own detail on top of the national rule:
Underneath sits section 163 of the Highways Act 1980, which makes it an offence to let surface water from your property run onto the footway. Tameside, Oldham and Rochdale all cite it. It is the practical reason a driveway has to deal with its own water, whatever the planning position.
“All driveways must be installed using permeable material.”Manchester City Council — highways guidance on vehicle crossings
“…you will not need planning permission if the new driveway uses permeable surfacing, or if the rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally.”Manchester City Council — planning guidance
One makes permeable surfacing mandatory. The other treats it as one of two options. Both are live.
If you lay an impermeable surface in Manchester and drain it to a border, you may satisfy the planning department and still fall foul of the highways requirement attached to your crossing. Ask which applies to your application before you choose a surface.
An Article 4 Direction removes permitted development rights in a defined area. Where one covers hard surfaces, a driveway needs permission whatever it is made of — permeable or not, any size.
| Borough | Where the restriction applies |
|---|---|
| Stockport | 24 of its 37 conservation areas. The council’s own guidance says vehicle hardstandings are “likely to be refused”. Includes Cheadle Village, Hulme Hall Road and Swann Lane, Bramhall Park, Bramhall Lane South, Marple Bridge, Heaton Moor, Heaton Mersey and Davenport Park. Separately, a dropped kerb needs permission in all 37. |
| Bury | Holcombe (2016) covers the whole conservation area and removes the right to the surface, the boundary wall and the access. St Mary’s, Prestwich (2009) applies to properties fronting nine named streets, and excludes flats. |
| Bolton | Barrow Bridge. The conservation area appraisal suggests permission would likely be refused rather than merely required. |
| Salford | Mines Rescue Station — 1–15 Orchard Avenue and 308, 310 and 320 Ellenbrook Road. Unusually complete: surface, boundary and access are all caught, and even altering a boundary wall needs permission. Salford confirms it is the only one of its sixteen conservation areas. |
| High Peak | Old Glossop, sealed 27 May 1976, plus Buxton and Higher Chisworth. The Glossop direction applies to the original 1970 boundary only, not the later extensions — so two neighbouring streets can sit under different rules. |
| Trafford | No hardstanding direction is listed, but Trafford publishes no direction schedules at all, so that is unlisted rather than disproven. Its published direction covers gates, walls and the demolition of walls in eight heritage locations. Knocking through a front boundary wall is how most driveways get built, so that step may need permission even where the surfacing does not. |
| Tameside, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Wigan | No hardstanding direction found. Tameside’s Mottram direction covers walls and fences; Rochdale’s Prickshaw direction covers means of enclosure and deliberately omits hard surfaces; the rest concern change of use. |
Check your own address, not your area’s name. An Article 4 Direction is a line on a map. Some apply only to “some houses” within an area, or only to properties whose frontage is visible from a named street — St Mary’s in Prestwich works exactly that way, and excludes flats entirely.
Stockport’s definitive Article 4 table has not been updated since 2016, so anything made since will not appear on it. Confirm with the council’s planning department before any work is ordered. We’ll check it for you free if that’s easier.
You can be perfectly within permitted development on the surface and still be refused the crossing. In five boroughs you cannot use a private contractor for it at all.
Where we stand on this. Classic Stone Driveways does not carry out dropped kerb or vehicle crossing work. We lay driveway surfaces. We have set this out because it decides the order you do things in, and because in five of these boroughs no contractor can do it for you regardless of who you ask.
In all ten Greater Manchester boroughs the same council handles planning and the crossing. Glossop is the one exception: planning is High Peak Borough Council, but the crossing is Derbyshire County Council, and the contractor must be registered with them.
Salford publishes a warning worth repeating anywhere in the region — there are “bogus contractors who offer cut price dropped crossings. They operate illegally”, and the council will recharge the full cost of rebuilding the crossing to an approved standard.
The headline fee is rarely the number that decides whether a crossing goes ahead. What sits in the footway is.
These are not comparable like for like — some are application fees, some refundable deposits, and some councils publish a build cost while others publish nothing.
| Council | Up-front fee | Build cost | Decision time |
|---|---|---|---|
| Trafford | £60.38 or £60.30 | Not published | 4 weeks |
| Tameside | £70, refunded against the build | Not published | 10 working days |
| Wigan | £80 admin | £188 per metre (example £926) | 20 working days |
| Bury | £85 | Not published | 28 working days |
| Derbyshire (Glossop) | £160 for 2026/27 | Not published | Up to 8 weeks |
| Oldham | £218, non-refundable | Not published | Not published |
| Stockport | £220.48, not refunded | About £1,500 | Not published |
| Manchester | None published | From £1,575 | Not published |
| Bolton | None found | £1,301 to £2,303 — a full price list | 6–8 weeks to start |
| Salford | Nothing published | Nothing published | Not published |
| Rochdale | Nothing published | Nothing published | 20 working days to quote |
Where a council publishes nothing, that is an absence of published information — not a confirmed zero.
Two of these are contradictions, not gaps. Trafford publishes £60.38 on its step-by-step page and £60.30 on its application portal, neither dated. Stockport publishes a Section 50 fee of £350 on a page last updated in 2021 and £542 on its current schedule — homeowners are being quoted a five-year-old figure.
If the driveway is too shallow the crossing is refused, because a parked car would overhang the footway. It is the most common reason an application fails, and the threshold is not the same twice.
| Council | Minimum depth | Minimum width | Max gradient |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oldham | 5m (4.7m by exception) | 3m | 1 in 10 |
| Bury | 5m | 3.1m | Under 10% |
| Trafford | 5m | 3.1m | Under 10% |
| Stockport | 4.8m (6m at a garage) | 2.4m — “cannot be reduced” | Under 10% |
| Rochdale | 4.8m (5.5m to a garage) | 2.4m | Not published |
| Manchester | 4.8m | 3.5m | Not published |
| Bolton | 4.8m — below this “cannot be considered” | Not published | Not published |
| Salford | Not published | 2.7m | Not published |
| Tameside | Published only inside diagram images | — | Not published |
Manchester adds its own caveat: meeting the dimensions “does not guarantee approval”.
Planning decides whether you may lay it. The geology decides how it has to be built — and Greater Manchester is split roughly down the middle.
Much of the eastern side of Greater Manchester sits on stiff glacial clay. It holds water rather than letting it through, so a soakaway often will not work even though the surface above it is permeable.
This does not change the planning answer — a permeable driveway still needs no permission on size grounds. It changes the build: the sub-base has to store water and release it somewhere, rather than assume the ground will take it. Anyone quoting a soakaway here without testing the ground first is guessing.
Along the Mersey and Irwell valleys and across a band of the western boroughs, the ground is sand and gravel left by meltwater. It drains readily, so infiltration is usually straightforward and a permeable driveway can genuinely soak away where it falls.
This is the easiest ground in the region to build a permeable driveway on, and the strongest case for resin bound over an impermeable surface that has to be drained artificially.
Read this before using the map above. These are national geological surveys at 1:625,000 — regional mapping, not a survey of your garden. They tell you what is typical beneath a town, not what is under your front lawn.
Two things they will not show. Made ground is common across the old industrial parts of the county and is not mapped at this scale. And peat sits in pockets around Chat Moss and the Irlam and Cadishead mosslands, where settlement is a genuine risk and the sub-base has to be designed for it. On any site, the ground gets checked when the dig starts — that is what the excavation is for.
No hardstanding Article 4 anywhere in the borough. Of nine conservation areas, only Mottram in Longdendale restricts anything driveway-adjacent, and that covers walls and fences. Comparatively open. £70 quotation fee refunded against the build, decision in 10 working days, own contractor permitted under a Section 171 licence at £366. Areas we cover: Hyde, Denton, Dukinfield, Ashton-under-Lyne, Audenshaw.
The most restricted borough in the region — 24 of 37 conservation areas remove the right to lay hardstanding, and a dropped kerb needs permission in all 37. Address-level checks matter here more than anywhere. £220.48 assessment fee, about £1,500 for a typical crossing, own contractor permitted under Section 50 at £542. Areas we cover: Stockport, Cheadle Hulme and Bramhall, Marple, Hazel Grove.
No hardstanding Article 4 — its directions concern change of use. But it has the widest planning trigger of any borough: any road that is not unclassified. The council builds the crossing and no contractor option is published. Build cost from £1,575; applications close after 90 days of inactivity. Areas we cover: Didsbury.
No hardstanding Article 4. Publishes the most detailed refusal criteria in the region: 10m from a junction on an unclassified road, 15m classified, 20m from traffic lights, and automatic refusal where there is a solid white centre line. Council builds the crossing. £218, non-refundable. See Oldham.
Two hardstanding Article 4 Directions — Holcombe and St Mary’s in Prestwich. Council builds the crossing; £85, assessment within 28 working days. See Bury.
One hardstanding Article 4 at Barrow Bridge. Publishes the only full crossing price list in the region (£1,301 to £2,303) and no householder planning guidance on surfaces at all. Council builds the crossing; 6 to 8 weeks to start. See Bolton.
One hardstanding Article 4 at the Mines Rescue Station conservation area. Salford does not build crossings at all — your contractor does, and the council’s three-firm panel is not mandatory. No fees of any kind are published, so treat any Salford figure quoted elsewhere as unsourced. See Salford.
No hardstanding Article 4 — its Prickshaw direction covers means of enclosure only. Requires a 500mm bound strip where gravel meets the footway and publishes a full list of its classified roads. No fees published, and the contractor question is genuinely unresolved between its policy and its application page. See Rochdale.
No hardstanding direction is listed, but Trafford publishes no schedules at all — unlisted, not disproven. Its published direction covers gates, walls and the demolition of walls in eight heritage locations including addresses in Urmston, Sale and Stretford. Own contractor permitted under Section 50; decision in 4 weeks. Areas we cover: Altrincham, Hale, Urmston.
No hardstanding Article 4. Council builds the crossing; £80 admin fee, £188 per metre, decision in 20 working days — and the clearest warning of any council about utility diversions. Areas we cover: Wigan, Astley.
The one genuinely two-tier case. Planning is High Peak Borough Council; the crossing is Derbyshire County Council at £160 for 2026/27, contractor must be DCC-registered. Old Glossop carries a hardstanding Article 4 sealed 27 May 1976, applying to the original 1970 boundary only. Derbyshire also specifies a porous bound material “not loose chippings”. See Glossop.
Outside Greater Manchester but within our area. Despite 76 conservation areas, no Article 4 Direction covering hardstanding was found — Alderley Edge, Prestbury, Wilmslow and Poynton have none at all. Own contractor permitted under Section 171. Areas we cover: Wilmslow, Alderley Edge, Macclesfield.
Everything on this page is regional. Whether it applies to your property depends on a line on a map. Send us your postcode and we’ll look up what your council publishes for it — conservation area, Article 4, classified road, and which crossing rules you fall under.
We’ll tell you what the council’s published position is for your postcode. It is not a formal planning decision — only your council can give you that — and there is no charge and no obligation.
Every figure on this page is taken from what these councils publish themselves, and was last verified on 19 August 2026.
Councils change fees and guidance without notice, and several of these figures are undated at source. This page is not planning advice and cannot tell you what applies to your address — only your council can do that.
We lay resin bound and tarmac driveways across Greater Manchester. Tell us where you are and we’ll tell you honestly which questions your council will ask first.
