Farm Entrance width etc.

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

Help please. Our farm entrance is awful: we can get an 8 wheeler in with care but our walls have had some punishment over the years. Time for an easy night time artic friendly entrance where driver does not need to be at his or her best. We are getting expert advice on swept areas etc after a gps survey. It is very slow! Previously we did our other farm entrance to some highways approved plan. Contractors said it was rubbish and made it lots wider.
This is a simple 90 degree turn into a drive which after it narrows in will be 4m wide approx. I think we will have flexibility so that the 4m part is a long way off the highway. I have a mental picture of a funnel 4 m wide with 45 degree flaring out. The highway is a typical unclassified road wide enough for 2 cars to pass with care, maybe 5m, and 1m verges each side.
Hopefully someone will have done something similar and I think I just need to know how wide the drive needs to be where it meets highway in a design that actually works and the drivers don’t moan. We rely on hauliers and need to look after them. I am troubled that whatever the experts say will not work in the “real world”.
Thanks in anticipation.

 

[24/7 farming]

if roads are 90 degrees to each other, a radius matching the longest vehicle likely to use the entrance should leave it comfortable (eg 12m radius (blue line) with movement of a12m (40ft)) artic is shown below)
Would still recommend a decent offset for any proposed pillars etc!

Obviously this is a 'sitting at a computer ideal world set up'!... assuming lorry can use full width of road, nothing close to opposite verge, even that gradient is flat... as that can have an effect!

Shown entering from the left and leaving to the right

Gives an idea...

 

[upnortheast]

Somewhere I`ve seen a spec for this, Think it was a county council highways web page. Will have a search later
Edit
This is what I was thinking of

Standard drawings for vehicular access

Standard drawings published by Development Control including access layout, footways, passing place, car turning place and layout on classified roads.

www.suffolk.gov.uk

 

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

Thanks for the comments above.
Hopefully our engineer will be back with 12 m radii or better.
We are going to wall it and have some big gates and agree we need a bit of extra room. We have a neighbouring house opposite whose occupants are slightly territorial about “their” verge which adds to the problem. After a lifetime of struggle we are doing this once and doing it right. Hopefully!

 

[Doing it for the kids]

Find a local site with a similar turning which would work for you

Use google earth and trace / impose it over your entrance.

I do it all the time, can measure with surprising accuracy

 

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

Find a local site with a similar turning which would work for you

Use google earth and trace / impose it over your entrance.

I do it all the time, can measure with surprising accuracy

Great idea thanks!
I have only found one suspect near Dumfries but it’s opening onto the A75.
Must try harder to think of a better example.

 

[Mouser]

12m wide onto a 6m road here is tight but possible for standard 40ft trailers but fine for milk and meal lorries with steering axles.

 

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

Thanks.

View attachment 114287812m wide onto a 6m road here is tight but possible for standard 40ft trailers but fine for milk and meal lorries with steering axles.

Our highway looks narrower.
I eagerly await the expert view from a computer but it looks like we are going to be needing about 15 to 20 m. Narrowing to the eventual 4m.

 

[mezz]

This may be useful, it's the recommendation for a forestry bellmouth.

 

[puppet]

Great idea thanks!
I have only found one suspect near Dumfries but it’s opening onto the A75.
Must try harder to think of a better example.

If you are in this south west area there are plenty big dairy farms opening off single track roads with multiple artic deliveries and milk tankers daily. You could go and measure some. I can think of 8 straight away

 

[Lapwing]

We did similar a while back. Works really well until some numptie decides that it’s a good place to park for their countryside walk. The concept of large vehicles needing more space to turn in than their little car seems beyond them.

 

[suffolksmallholder]

The road frontage must be constructed with a ‘bound’ substance, ie, concrete or tarmac.
I’d strongly recommend concrete for a farm entrance.
SS

 

[Agri Spec Solicitor]

View attachment 1142902
This may be useful, it's the recommendation for a forestry bellmouth.

This is brilliant thanks. So simple. My instinct is to make it slightly bigger than minimum. It’s a fair point about such a big chunk of tarmac being an invitation for a passing place or parking: and there is a house opposite. A bigger issue is our entrance is the exact point for our post code on satnav. So the delivery vans turn up and ask if we are any one of about 8 addresses even though we display the farm name and my name. I think we should fit a coffee vending machine to get some income from it