A report recommending the changes was approved by Richard Jackson, County Council Cabinet member for Transport and Highways.
This follows a decision by the County Council in June that more of its highways operations will be out-sourced and carried out by private contractors.
The main change as far as the public is concerned is that, from April next year, they will no longer have to pay the County Council when installing a dropped kerb for access outside their home. Instead, they will be able to employ their own contractor at competitive market prices, via a simple licence system.
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The cost of the licence will be charged to the customer but will be less than £50 per application. Customers will still be able to obtain a quote from the County Council to do the work if they wish but the move is expected to provide around £500,000 of work for local contractors.
Mr Jackson said: "Key considerations in awarding this contract will be quality of service, value for money, experience of delivering local authority highway services and willingness to work alongside our in-house operations unit."
(CD/GK)
