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One shire, covered properly

13 suburbs, every one of them inside Cardinia Shire. That is a deliberate boundary: it keeps travel out of your quote, keeps the crew where the work is, and means the council process on your street is one we run constantly rather than occasionally.

Cardinia Shire and the road reserve, briefly

Your driveway splits into two legal halves at the property line. Inside the boundary it is yours and no council permission applies. Outside it, the crossover sits in the road reserve, and although you pay for it and maintain it, it lives on council land under council rules. Cardinia Shire calls the approval a Works Within a Road Reserve permit, and one is needed before a crossover is built, changed or repaired, before council drainage on your property is connected to, and before any related kerb or footpath work.

The shire’s conditions shape who can do the work. The permit is only issued where the job is carried out by a qualified contractor holding twenty million dollars in public liability insurance, with a certificate of currency lodged in the application along with the contractor’s details, the location and dimensions of the works and traffic management arrangements where they are needed, and everything in the road reserve must be reinstated to its prior condition afterwards. The fee is $160.60 for 2026-27 and is reset by council each financial year, assessment can take up to 28 business days, and the permit runs for six months with a three month extension available on request. Building a new home instead? That is the separate asset protection permit, lodged at least four weeks before construction starts.

One requirement is very local: on the shire’s many unkerbed roads the crossover passes over a culvert, and the owner is responsible for that pipe being the right size, correctly placed and kept clear. Where a crossover meets an arterial road such as the Princes Highway or Koo Wee Rup Road, further planning approval can sit on top of the shire’s permit, which we identify before anyone commits to anything.

The practical advice hiding in all this is about timing: with assessment allowed to run 28 business days, the week you order the shed or book the concreter is the week the permit application should go in. We treat crossover and culvert as one piece of work, fold the permit’s timeline into the job programme, and confirm the current fee with your quote rather than quoting a stale one. The crossover permit guide walks the whole process end to end.

Shire permit information