Caravan Side Access in Melton: What Council Will and Won't Approve

The van is bought, the side gate is planned, and then council says no. It happens more often than people expect, and almost always for the same handful of reasons.

A second crossing is assessed, not granted

There is no automatic entitlement to a second vehicle crossing. Council assesses each application against the specific frontage, and the deciding factors are usually physical rather than discretionary.

**Frontage width.** This dominates. Council needs adequate kerb remaining between the crossings and at each side boundary. On a standard estate frontage already carrying a double crossing, there is frequently not enough left, and no argument changes that.

**Street trees.** On established streets this is the most common single reason for refusal. Council will not generally approve a crossing that requires removing a healthy street tree or cutting significant roots.

**Pits, poles and drainage structures.** These are where they are, and the crossing has to clear them.

**Sight distance.** Relevant near corners and on faster roads.

Wide frontages and corner blocks have a substantially better prospect than a standard suburban block. If you are on a typical growth-estate frontage, get a view on feasibility early.

Do this before you buy the van

Measure the frontage. Photograph it from the street showing the existing crossing, the nature strip, any tree and the neighbouring crossings. Note where the pits are. That is enough for someone who does this regularly to tell you whether an application is likely to succeed.

It is a fifteen-minute exercise that occasionally saves a very expensive misunderstanding.

The hardstand behind the crossing

Getting the crossing approved is half of it. The surface the van actually sits on is the other half, and it is routinely underbuilt.

A loaded caravan concentrates weight through a small contact patch and then leaves it there for months. Jockey wheels and stabiliser legs concentrate it far more severely again. A standard driveway detail can handle a car driving over it daily and still be marked by a jockey wheel left loaded through a hot February.

Side access strips also tend to be narrow, running between the house and a boundary fence, which makes drainage a deliberate design question. Water needs somewhere to go that is not against the house wall.

Measure the van, not the car

Include mirrors and the awning. Then think about the turn in from the street — a gate opening exactly as wide as the van is unusable in practice, because you cannot approach it square.

The common regret is side access that technically fits and takes five minutes of shuffling every single time. Where the crossing sits relative to the gate matters more than another hundred millimetres of width.

If the answer is no

The usual alternatives are widening the existing crossing and running access down the side from it, or building the hardstand and using the crossing you already have. Less convenient, but both avoid a refused application and neither wastes the money already spent.