Driveways in Alderholt
Block paving, resin, tarmac and stone patios in Alderholt, dug out properly and drained where the ground is wet. Free site visit and a written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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A drive that has sunk, ponds or grows weeds through the joints has almost always failed underneath, not on top. In Alderholt the ground holds water, so the fix is usually about where that water goes, not which surface you pick.
A failing drive or patio in Alderholt gives itself away in wet weather and in the wheel tracks. A puddle by the front door that is still there two days after the rain. Block paving that has dropped in the wheel tracks where the car sits, while the rest of the drive is fine. Or a back patio that has gone green and rocks underfoot every time you cross it.
All three are worth a look before another winter. We come out, walk the fall with a level, and where it matters we dig a small trial hole so you can see what is actually under your drive instead of guessing at it. Then you get a written price for the work that is needed, and an honest answer about the work that is not.
The work
What Alderholt drives actually need, from the dig up
Block paving needs lifting and relaying. A lot of the village drives went down with the 1980s and 1990s housing, and plenty more were block paved later straight over old concrete without digging out.
Both fail the same way: the blocks ride down where the wheels sit, the edge restraint rolls outward, the jointing sand washes out and weed comes up through the joints. Where the sub-base underneath is sound we lift the blocks, take the levels back up on fresh sharp sand, re-haunch the edgings in concrete and re-sand the joints with kiln dried sand. Where the formation is soft and wet, relaying only buys a couple of years and we will say so on the visit.
Full rebuilds start with the dig. We excavate to formation, get a geotextile membrane down so the stone cannot pump into the soft ground below, then lay and compact the sub-base in layers, never in one lift. Alderholt ground holds water instead of shedding it, so infiltration is not the default answer: a soakaway wants a percolation test first, and on the wetter plots at the Cranborne end it may need a positive outfall instead. That means going deeper than standard, the spoil is heavier and there is more of it, so the muck away is a real line on the quote.
On surfaces we lay block paving and permeable block, tarmac, concrete, and resin bound gravel where there is an existing slab sound enough to bond to. Resin over a cracked slab telegraphs the crack through within a year or two, so the slab gets checked before we quote it rather than after. On the older frontages along the lanes a bound gravel or a hoggin drive usually looks right where a black tarmac apron would not.
Where the paving meets the house. The damp proof course. Building a drive or a patio up to sit flush with a threshold is how a dry wall turns damp, and on a low cottage it is the easiest mistake to make. Porcelain, natural stone and riven slab go on a full mortar bed, never five dabs, with the fall running away from the house. For a patio or garden paving on its own, see patios in Alderholt. Then the gullies and the channel drains, because on ground this wet a sunken drive is very often a drainage problem wearing a paving problem's clothes.
How it runs
Digging out and laying a new drive on wet sand
Thomas comes out, walks the drive with you, sees where the rain runs now and prices it himself. His written quote itemises digging out and muck away, the sub-base, the edgings, the surface you choose and the drainage. The dig, the base and the new surface then follow in that order.
Most Alderholt plots have room for a small digger and a skip without touching the road. On a cul-de-sac sharing a turning head, deliveries are timed so the neighbours can still get out, and where a cottage lane has no off-street space the spoil goes in smaller loads. The pavement is swept each evening. If we find a buried soakaway or soft ground once digging starts, Thomas shows you and gives you a figure before going further.
New hard surfacing at the front larger than five square metres has to be permeable or drain onto your own land, as the Planning Portal front garden page explains. A new opening onto the road needs a dropped kerb approved by Dorset Council as highway authority. Alderholt has no conservation area. It does have listed buildings, the Church of St James among them, so if your house is old check the Historic England list first. For most addresses there is nothing more to apply for.
Cost
Most of a driveway's cost is under the surface
Most of what you pay for in a drive is underground, so it is never priced by the square metre.
Getting in. A detached house with a wide frontage is easy for a small digger and a skip. A cul-de-sac house sharing a turning head needs deliveries timed round the neighbours. A cottage behind a hedge, or on a lane with no off-street space, means barrowing spoil further and in smaller loads.
Wet sand. Alderholt sits on sandy heath ground with a high water table in winter. The dig has to reach a firm formation, the crushed stone sub-base has to be deep enough to spread the weight of a car, and every barrow of wet spoil has to go somewhere. When the water table is up a soakaway may fail its test, so the water may need an outfall instead. This is usually the biggest swing in the price.
What goes on top. Block paving needs a restrained edge and a sharp sand bed. Tarmac needs a kerb to hold it. Resin bound needs a solid, sealed base, and loose gravel needs a grid or it ends up on the lawn. Whatever you choose must finish below the damp proof course where it meets the house.
Ask other firms how deep they dig, what sub-base they use, where the surface water ends up and who takes the spoil away.
If it is urgent
Before a lifted slab or a flooded drive gets worse
Drives are seldom an emergency. A slab that has risen across the path, a sunken patch by the door, or a gully that no longer drains is still worth dealing with before somebody falls or water sits against the house.
Put a bin over the trip and clear the leaves off the gully grate if you can safely reach it. First we make it safe and get the water draining, then we price the proper repair once the ground can be opened. Scheduled groundwork runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Ring us instead of using the form for a hazard like this, and if the call goes unanswered we get back to you as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Wet ground, and why a soakaway is not automatic here
Around Alderholt the ground stays wet, and that changes the drainage decision on every drive and patio. The permitted development route for a front garden assumes surface water can either soak away on your own land or be held in a permeable build up until it does.
Where the ground will not take it, a soakaway dug on an assumption simply fills up in November and stays full, and the drive ponds every time it rains. Approved Document H is the standard the work is judged against, and it puts infiltration first only where infiltration actually works.
So we test rather than assume. A trial pit filled with water and timed tells us in an afternoon whether a soakaway is realistic. If it is not, the water has to be stored in the drive or piped away. Build the drive permeable with a deeper open graded stone layer that stores the water and lets it away slowly, which costs more in stone and in digging but needs no outfall.
Or take it to a positive outfall, a ditch or a watercourse you have the right to discharge into, with a silt trap before it. What we will not do is connect your drive to a foul drain to make the problem disappear, because that comes back on you later. And on the plots where the ground stays wettest, keeping that water away from the wall of the house matters more than the drive itself.
Who you are dealing with
Your drive, priced by the owner of the firm
Driveways take us 12.5 miles out to Alderholt from our base in Boscombe, in east Bournemouth, and we cover the village, Daggons and Cripplestyle, and across to Sandleheath and Cranborne. Dorset Council is the planning and highway authority.
Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is the company, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719. It is owned by Thomas Hannen, who comes to measure the drive and prices it himself rather than sending anyone else. One verified customer's score on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. You pay nothing for the visit or for the written quote, which lists every item. Before you book a visit in Alderholt, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Alderholt?
Most repairs in Alderholt need no application at all. What decides whether a change to the outside of your house does is who the council is, whether a conservation area or a listing applies, and whether the place sits in a protected landscape.
| Question | In Alderholt |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Alderholt. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Alderholt, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, Alderholt has listed buildings. If yours is one, or stands in the grounds of one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Alderholt. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Alderholt
Does anything in Alderholt need conservation consent for paving?
Rarely, because Alderholt has no conservation area of its own. It does have listed buildings, such as the Grade II Church of St James, so if yours is on the Historic England list, ask Dorset Council first. For an ordinary house the covering you choose is your choice, and a hard surface at the front sits under ordinary permitted development.
What still applies is where the water goes. Dorset Council take an interest the moment a new drive throws run off onto the highway, so we set the falls and the outfall first and pick the blocks afterwards.
Do you dig a test hole before promising a soakaway?
Yes. The ground round Alderholt is naturally wet, so infiltration is not something to assume. We open a pit where the soakaway would sit, fill it and time how far the water drops, and if it barely moves then a soakaway is the wrong answer and the drive needs a positive outfall instead. Guessing leaves you with a drive that stores water in its own crate all winter. The result goes on the written quote.
Why does it matter where a drive drains beside the house?
Because the ground under Alderholt is sandy but naturally wet, and the water table rises in winter. Soak one strip beside the wall every time it rains and you keep the footings and the base of the wall wet for months, which is a damp problem you then have to chase indoors. So new drainage stays clear of the wall, runs to a proper outlet, and the surface falls away from the building instead of towards it.
Do you cover Alderholt, or is it too far out?
We cover it: Alderholt is about twelve and a half miles from us, so Thomas comes out in one visit, measures up, looks at the ground and leaves with everything he needs to write the quote. That visit costs nothing and neither does the written itemised quote that follows. Working out this way just means deliveries get booked tighter, because a wagon standing about on a village road helps nobody.
What tells me the base has failed rather than the blocks?
Look at the pattern: if the blocks have dropped in two lines where the car stands while the rest sits flat and the edges are still tight, the trouble is under the wheel tracks and the blocks themselves are fine. If the whole surface dips and the edge course has spread outwards, the restraint has gone and relaying alone will not hold it. On wet Alderholt ground it is normally the sub base holding water.
Nearby, and next door
Driveways near Alderholt
Nearby places we also cover for driveways, with straight-line distances from Alderholt, and the other trades we offer in Alderholt itself.
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Our other trades in Alderholt
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Get a price for your Alderholt drive or patio
Tell us what it is doing and we will come out, dig a trial hole where it matters, and put a written price in front of you.