ᐅ Road closure for crane staging area in a dead-end street?

We are building a single-family prefabricated timber frame house in a cul-de-sac, which requires a crane placement area on the public road in front of our property. The street is not very wide. Do you have any experience with whether a full road closure is possible for a cul-de-sac and what costs might be involved? I assume that local authorities always require access for an ambulance or fire truck to reach the end of the cul-de-sac. How was this handled in your case?

I think the easiest way would be for you to simply ask the responsible local authority.

And then here you describe your new findings.

Pinkiponk schrieb:

We are building a single-family prefabricated timber frame house on a dead-end street, which requires a crane to be parked on the public road in front of our property. The street is quite narrow. Do you have any experience with whether a full road closure is possible for a dead-end street and what costs might be involved? I assume local authorities generally require that an ambulance or fire truck must be able to access the end of the cul-de-sac. How was this handled in your case?

We have exactly the same issue with the crane parking space. We’re meeting with a construction engineer next week who will hopefully tell us if it is feasible. I also called the civil engineering department earlier (this was regarding the crane for the solid construction phase). They referred me to a local traffic management provider of my choice (recommendations not allowed). This company then measured the road online using software like Boris or something similar. As you guessed, emergency access must of course be kept clear, so a clearance of 3 meters (10 feet) is required. In our case, about 1.5 meters (5 feet) of the road can be closed off. Unfortunately, the road is really narrow.

Pinkiponk schrieb:

which makes a crane parking space on the public road in front of our property necessary.

We had the same situation. Whether it’s a dead-end street or not doesn’t matter. It was a side street with a bus stop 20cm (8 inches) away. We had to apply for a partial road closure for 3 days.

jonhebbe schrieb:

I think the easiest way would be to simply ask the responsible local authority.

Yes and no. Of course, you’re right.
BUT: You also have to consider that you might wake a sleeping dog. If Pinkiponk now asks the municipality and a strict official says that this road must never be blocked, not even briefly, then you’re in trouble.
Because my Plan B would be to rent a crane (possibly a loader crane would be enough) for one or two weeks with a timber frame construction. Under unfavorable conditions, this could even be one of the most cost-effective alternatives. But technically, this crane isn’t supposed to block the road either. And if the strict official catches wind of that, I’ll be in big trouble.

To quote Willy Meurer: Sometimes it’s wiser to ask for forgiveness afterward than for permission beforehand.

So if you can be fairly sure that a weeks-long closure is not possible, then just talk to the neighbors kindly and bring a crate of beer (or something similar) to thank them for their patience when the road is not passable during the day. And don’t involve the local authority at all. That would at least be my strategy.