ArcLine Group carries out groundworks across Cheshire, covering Congleton, Crewe, Nantwich, Sandbach, Macclesfield, Knutsford, Alsager, Middlewich, Holmes Chapel and the surrounding villages. Dropped kerbs and vehicle crossings are our largest area of work, alongside driveways, drainage, excavation, foundations and reinstatement.
Dropped kerb work in Cheshire East is a regulated process, not just a construction job. The council must consent to the crossing as highway authority, and separately the excavation of the footway has to be applied for by the contractor doing the work — not by the homeowner. We handle the whole sequence: eligibility check, the council application, utility asset checks, the permit to dig, the excavation and kerb works, and the reinstatement of the footway to highway specification.
The single most common reason a Cheshire application stalls is the planning step being missed. Cheshire East requires planning permission before a highways application where the property fronts an A, B or C classified road, is listed, sits in a conservation area, raises surface-water drainage concerns, or is non-residential. Conservation areas and listed buildings are common in Knutsford, Nantwich and Congleton in particular, so we establish which route applies to your address before anything is submitted.
Cheshire East applications are approved, approved subject to modifications, or rejected. "Approved subject to modifications" is the outcome people are least prepared for — it usually concerns the crossing position, the width, drainage, or apparatus in the way such as a gully or a lamp column. Where apparatus has to move, that needs separate permission from whoever owns it, and that cost sits with the applicant. We flag that possibility at assessment stage rather than after the ground is open.
The council also wants to see who is doing the work. It requires full details of the contractor's qualifications and insurance before granting permission. We are NRSWA approved and SWQR registered, and we carry comprehensive Public Liability Insurance, so that part of the application is straightforward.
Beyond dropped kerbs, our Cheshire groundworks covers block-paved, resin-bound and tarmac driveways, patios and hard landscaping, drainage installation and repair, soakaways and surface-water management, foundations and footings, site clearance, muck-away and levelling, and concreting. Cheshire's clay-heavy subsoils and the flatter mid-Cheshire ground around Middlewich and Sandbach both make surface-water management something to design properly rather than assume.
Where a new or enlarged driveway sheds water toward the highway, drainage is not optional — it is one of the things the council looks at. We build in the falls, the drainage runs and the permeable detailing needed so that the finished job is compliant as well as usable.
Our pricing on dropped kerbs is a fixed written quote for the works. Council application and permit charges are separate and are the council's charges, not ours. You are free to make the application yourself, or you can ask us to manage the whole application process for a £250 administration fee. We tell you which figures are ours and which are the council's, itemised, before you commit.
Cheshire West and Chester Council — covering Chester, Northwich, Winsford, Ellesmere Port, Neston and Frodsham — is a separate highway authority with its own vehicle crossing process, its own forms and its own charges. If your property is in that area, the process is different from the Cheshire East process described here and you should start with that council's own vehicle crossings guidance.
We do not subcontract. The same people quote, apply, dig and reinstate, which is what keeps the work to the standard a highway authority expects. Eligible work carries our written workmanship guarantee, confirmed in writing before we start.
If you need groundworks or a dropped kerb in Cheshire, get in touch for a free assessment. We will tell you plainly whether the crossing is likely to be approved before you spend anything on it.