Section 138 driveway approval, from the side of the owner paying for the driveway

Which part of the driveway does council approve?

The crossing: the concrete from your front boundary out to the gutter, layback included. The run from the boundary back to the garage is on your own land and Section 138 has nothing to say about it.

The reason is in the Roads Act 1993. Section 138 makes it an offence to build in, on or over a public road without the roads authority’s consent, and the Act’s idea of a road takes in the footpath, the verge and the kerb as well as the bitumen. For an ordinary residential street in either council area that authority is the council itself; where the street is a classified road, Transport for NSW is consulted too.

So a Section 138 approval is council’s written consent to build, widen, move or remove a crossing. It is a separate thing from a development application and from a complying development certificate, and holding one of those does not carry it with it, which both councils say in as many words.

Does your job need it?

Go by what happens at the verge.

• A first driveway on a new lot. Yes. There is no crossing yet.
• Widening for a second car. Yes, if the crossing widens or moves. If the widening stays inside your boundary and the crossing is untouched, no.
• Replacing a cracked or sunken driveway. Yes for the crossing, even at the same width. Lake Macquarie City Council is explicit that a replacement brings a new application and a new fee. City of Newcastle’s Type 1 approval covers taking out or altering a driveway that joins a public road, not only building one.
• Moving the driveway. Yes, and the approval also covers taking out the old layback and putting the kerb and verge back.
• A second crossing on the same frontage. Yes, as its own application, and not every frontage will get one.
• A stormwater pipe from the house to the kerb. Yes, as a road opening on the same application in Newcastle and as the road opening section of the same form in Lake Macquarie.
• Concrete that stays inside your boundary. No road approval. A path, a patio, a shed slab or the run from boundary to garage answer to the state’s exempt development provisions instead, which carry limits of their own.

Why can’t you lodge it on the NSW Planning Portal?

Because neither council has opted in. The NSW Planning Portal offers online Section 138 lodgement, though only to councils that have joined it, and the portal publishes which ones have. When this site checked that list on 28 September 2026, Cessnock City was on it and City of Newcastle and Lake Macquarie City Council were not. If a search result or a builder tells you to lodge your driveway on the portal, it is advice for a different council area. Each of these two councils takes the application through its own system, and the two systems are not alike.

City of Newcastle: what happens, in order

1. Pick the right form. City of Newcastle splits Section 138 into Type 1 and Type 2. Type 1 is the one for a house: a driveway, with a road opening permit added if a pipe or a service has to cross the verge. Type 2 is public infrastructure.
2. Draw the crossing to A1300. That is council’s driveway crossing standard, the sheet the inspector checks the formwork against. It gives a single residential crossing 2.5 to 3.0 metres of width and a double 2.5 to 4.5 metres, set at right angles to the kerb.
3. Lodge with council. The Type 1 form is reached through council’s online services from its forms page. Council’s own post-consent guidance is to get the application in as early as practical once a DA or CDC is granted, so the driveway is not what holds up the build. Questions go to 02 4974 2000.
4. Wait for the approval letter. A1300 is written to be read together with the letter, which sets the grades along with AS 2890.1. Where the two disagree, the letter wins.
5. Have the formwork inspected before any concrete goes down. Council’s inspection request page wants two business days’ notice, and inspects on weekdays from 7am to 3pm. Book the pour after the inspection, not before it.

No fee and no processing time for a Type 1 application appear on the City of Newcastle pages this site was able to read, so neither is quoted here.

Lake Macquarie City Council: what happens, in order

1. Register for council’s online services before you need them. Council says registration can take up to a business day.
2. Open a Minor Public Works application, choosing “Application for access to property” as the type. A pipe or a utility crossing the verge goes into the road opening part of the same form.
3. Attach two drawings, each as a flattened PDF. One is a site plan with the driveway marked; the other is a driveway profile, the fall from gutter to garage drawn over the existing ground. A3 is council’s preferred sheet size.
4. Pay the fee as you submit. The form works it out and takes a card payment at lodgement. One driveway, one application, one fee.
5. Allow the assessment time. Council’s driveway page quotes 10 to 15 working days for an application with nothing unusual in it; its Minor Public Works page says to allow about 21 days.
6. Read the approval letter for the inspection. It names whether council inspects before the pour or after it. The same letter is what a certifier asks for when a DA or CDC carries a driveway condition.

Council’s Asset Technical Officers answer questions on 02 4921 0333.

How wide can the crossing be?

This is the question a second car turns on, and the two councils answer it differently.

	City of Newcastle	Lake Macquarie City Council
Single crossing	2.5 to 3.0 m	3.0 m minimum
Double crossing	2.5 to 4.5 m	4.0 m at the kerb, wings not counted
Width at the boundary	Per the approval letter	5.0 m
Clear of a power pole	750 mm	750 mm
Clear of a drainage pit	1 metre off a kerb inlet pit	500 mm off a stormwater pit, 300 mm off a telecommunications pit
Clear of a street tree	3 metres off the trunk	Judged tree by tree; replanting can be a condition
Near a corner	Set in the approval	6 metres back from the tangent point

Inside your boundary the driveway can be any width the lot allows. The crossing is what the table limits, and a driveway wider than its crossing simply flares behind the boundary line.

What the slab across the verge has to be

City of Newcastle’s crossing is at least 100 mm of 25 MPa concrete, SL72 mesh in the top of the slab under 40 mm cover, joints at 3 metre centres or closer, and a 1.2 metre band across it held at 1 in 40 so a footpath can be laid later.

Lake Macquarie’s crossing is at least 125 mm of 25 MPa concrete with SL72 mesh, dowelled to the kerb, no steeper than 1 in 5 (20 percent) unless council specifically allows it, with transitions to AS/NZS 2890.1. Because the profile drawing is part of the application, a steep block in Charlestown or Toronto is approved or refused on that drawing before a truck is booked.

Both are minimums for the crossing only. What the driveway inside your boundary should be is set out on the specification page.

Can the crossing match a decorative driveway?

Sometimes, and each council draws the line in a different place.

City of Newcastle’s drawing calls for broom finished plain concrete with bevelled edges. Colour, pattern, exposed aggregate and stencil are things council “may consider”. It will not permit stamped concrete, asphalt or sealer on the crossing.

Lake Macquarie’s preference is plain concrete, coved or broomed. Coloured and stencilled work passes when sealed with a non-slip product; exposed aggregate passes when rhyolite or basalt makes up 75 percent or more of the stone. Dig a crossing up for any reason and council puts back plain grey.

The arrangement that passes in both areas without argument is the decorative slab stopping at the boundary, a saw cut on the line, and a broomed grey crossing beyond it. It costs less as well, since the crossing is poured at the plain rate.

Who prepares and lodges the application?

Owner or contractor, either may. In both areas it is the owner who answers for a crossing that does not meet the standard. Lake Macquarie also wants the contractor on the crossing to carry adequate insurance and the right licence, and it puts the Before You Dig check on the owner.

None of that tells you what your concreter will do, so ask, and have the answer written into the quote: who draws the site plan and the profile, who lodges, who pays the fee, and who books the inspection. A quote that says “approval included” without saying what that covers is a quote to query.

The order that avoids a delay

1. Have the driveway measured and quoted, crossing included.
2. Settle the crossing width and the finish, because both go on the application.
3. Lodge, and in Lake Macquarie register first.
4. Receive the approval letter and read the inspection condition.
5. Book the pour around the inspection, not the other way round.
6. Formwork inspected (Newcastle) or pre-pour inspected (Lake Macquarie, where the letter says so).
7. Pour, cut the joints, cure, and keep cars off it for about a week.

The step that costs people time is booking the concreter first and lodging second, then paying a crew to wait for a letter. When the old driveway is coming out as part of a removal and replacement, the same order applies and the old layback comes out under the same approval.

Sources, checked September 2026

• City of Newcastle: the Type 1 application page, its post-consent information sheet, drawing A1300 (revision 2) and the driveway inspection request page.
• Lake Macquarie City Council: its driveways page, its Minor Public Works page and drawings EGSD 201 and 202.
• NSW Government: the Planning Portal’s Section 138 page with its council list, and section 138 of the Roads Act 1993.

Forms, fees and drawings change without notice. Where this page and a council’s current page differ, the council’s page is right.