Driveways in Barton on Sea
Block paving, resin, terraces and shared parking courts in Barton on Sea, built for the salt and the wind. 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.
Last updated
Close to the cliff edge, a Barton on Sea drive or patio spends most of the year damp and salty, so the details that fail first are the joints, the edges and anything metal. Build those right and the surface itself is the easy part.
Paving in Barton on Sea goes wrong at the joints, in the old concrete and on terraces open to the wind. The block paving has gone green and the joints are empty, so weed comes through and the blocks rock underfoot. The old concrete in front of the garage has cracked and dropped at one corner. Or the terrace at the back catches the wind and the view, and is slippery from October to April.
We come out and survey what is there before saying anything about price. That means looking at the falls, checking where your rainwater actually goes, and digging a small trial hole so we can see the build up under the surface. Then you get a written price, itemised, so you can tell the difference between a relay and a rebuild instead of taking our word for it.
The work
Drives, garage aprons and the parking outside the flats
Shared parking courts and forecourts. There is a good deal of flatted housing in Barton and the parking outside it belongs to the block rather than to any one household.
That changes who instructs the job, not the job: the surface still sinks under the wheel tracks, the gully still silts up, the edges still fail where cars overrun them. What is different is the paperwork, because work of any size on a block is usually consulted on with leaseholders under section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985, and an itemised quote is exactly what that process needs. An itemised quote suits a residents' company or a managing agent, and a large area can be phased so the parking does not all shut at once.
Block paving in Barton on Sea loses its joints faster than it does inland. Wind driven sand and rain empty them, and once the jointing sand has gone the blocks move against each other, the restraint pushes out and the weed arrives. On a sound base that is a lift and relay on fresh sharp sand, the edgings re-haunched and kiln dried sand brushed back in. Where the base has gone we excavate to formation, membrane it and compact a new sub-base in layers.
Plenty of frontages still have the concrete apron or the tarmac they were built with in the fifties and sixties, and both have had a hard life in this air. Concrete cracks along its bays, tarmac ravels and goes grey. Sound, well drained concrete will take resin bound gravel and avoid a dig altogether. Concrete that has moved will not, and resin over it cracks in the same line, so we check before quoting.
Paving by the water. Many Barton homes sit within a few hundred metres of the cliff edge, so paving here stays damp longer than it would two miles inland. Textured porcelain keeps its grip when wet; natural stone and riven slab want a full mortar bed, a fall away from the house and a level below the damp proof course. For a back terrace, see patios in Barton on Sea. Single storey roofs drop their water at low level, so a gully full of blown sand means ponding at the front door within two winters: we clear or replace it, add a channel drain at a garage threshold, and take it to an outfall where the ground will not soak.
How it runs
Laying a new drive in front of a bungalow or block
Thomas comes out, measures up, looks at where the water goes now and checks for manholes, meters and service covers. The quote shows excavation and removing the spoil, the sub base, edgings, the paving or other surface, drainage and making good, each on its own line. You have one point of contact throughout.
Most Barton drives sit in front of a bungalow or detached house with room for a skip and a small digger. On a block of flats with a shared forecourt, the work is phased so residents can still park, and the freeholder or managing agent instructs it, so check the lease first. We keep the path to your door open, never leave an open trench unguarded overnight, and sweep the road each evening. If we find a soft spot, old foundations or a broken drain, Thomas sends a photo and the cost, and waits for your yes.
You can pave a front garden without planning permission as long as rainwater stays on your land. Once the new hard surface covers more than five square metres, it has to be permeable or drain to a soakaway or a planted border rather than the street, and the Planning Portal sets out the front garden rules. That right belongs to houses only. A flat or maisonette has no permitted development rights here, so new hard surfacing on a block's forecourt needs planning permission as well as the freeholder's agreement. Making or widening an entrance from the road needs a dropped kerb, which the highway authority deals with separately, so apply early. Barton has no conservation area, and New Forest District Council is the planning authority.
Cost
Dig depth, clay and edgings: the drive price explained
We do not price drives per square metre, because what goes under the surface costs more than the surface. The layout. A bungalow with a single width apron, a detached house on a corner with an opening at each end, and a block with one entrance to a shared court are different jobs before we price any material. The shared court adds phasing, since the parking cannot all close at once.
The dig and the ground. Barton is on clay that shrinks and swells. A drive on it needs a deeper, well compacted sub base so it does not rut, and more spoil leaves by lorry. Clay also drains slowly, so a soakaway may fail and the water may need a channel to a permeable border instead.
The surface. Block paving, resin bound and permeable gravel each need a different base and edging. Near the sea, edgings and anything metal should stand up to salt, and a gully near the road can fill with blown sand.
Levels. A drive that has to come up to the damp course or step down to the pavement needs more work than a flat plot.
Ask competing quotes for the dig depth, the sub base, where the water goes and who takes the spoil.
If it is urgent
A lifted slab or a drive that floods against the house
A lifted slab, a sunk section by the door, or a gully clogged with blown sand that has stopped draining is worth a phone call, not a form. Someone can trip, or water can stand against the house wall.
Put a cone or a bin over a trip hazard, and sweep sand away from a gully grate if you can do it safely. On the first visit we make it safe and get the water draining, then price the permanent work once the ground is opened. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. Ring, and if nobody answers, we will call you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Salt air, and the parts of a drive it goes after first
This close to the water, everything outside your house is dealt a slightly different hand. Salt in the air keeps surfaces damp between showers, so algae and black spot come back faster and a north facing patio never really dries out through the winter.
Salt also attacks metal from the edge inwards, which is why the fixings, brackets and any galvanised edging on an exposed frontage give up long before the paving does. And wind driven sand does the rest, scouring the jointing out of block paving and filling the gullies that are supposed to take your water away.
So the specification changes in small, cheap ways that pay for themselves. Use a proper jointing compound rather than loose sand on an exposed drive, or accept that a re-sand is part of ordinary maintenance every few years. Choose a textured surface for a terrace that faces the weather, because grip matters more here than it does behind a sheltered house. Keep steel and aluminium edge details out of the design where a concrete haunched edging will do the same work and not corrode.
Ask for the gullies and the channel drain to be somewhere you can lift and clear, because they will need clearing. And in the first winter after new concrete goes down, keep the salt based de-icer off it, a bag of grit does the same job without eating the surface. None of this is exotic, but it is the difference between a drive that looks tired in five years and one that does not.
Who you are dealing with
Drives and forecourts, measured by Thomas himself
Our base in Boscombe, Bournemouth, is a seven and a half mile drive from Barton on Sea. Drives and forecourts across Barton Court, Becton and the clifftop roads are in range, and so is Milford on Sea.
Planning questions go to New Forest District Council, and a dropped kerb to the highway authority. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales with company number 15471719, is Thomas Hannen's business, and Thomas measures up and prices each drive in person. A verified Checkatrade customer gave the firm 10 out of 10. The survey visit and the written quote, broken down line by line, are both free. Before you book a visit in Barton on Sea, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Barton on Sea?
Most repairs in Barton on Sea 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 Barton on Sea |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Barton on Sea. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Barton on Sea, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Barton on Sea. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Barton on Sea. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Barton on Sea
We are near the cliff. Does salt matter?
For the metal in the job it does. Many Barton on Sea homes sit within a few hundred metres of the cliff, and salt goes for steel edging pins, gate sockets, drainage gratings and any reinforcement long before it touches the paving. The surface can look sound while the restraint holding it in line has rusted through. So the buried metalwork gets specified for a coastal plot, and concrete haunching replaces steel pegs wherever it can.
Who instructs the work on the parking outside our flats?
Whoever holds the freehold, or the managing agent acting for them, instead of one leaseholder. About one home in six at Barton on Sea is a flat, and shared forecourts here are usually common parts, so a resurface cannot be ordered on a single owner's say so. Thomas prices it from a site visit and itemises the quote line by line so an agent can put it to the block. One named instruction is needed before anything starts.
Why does the seaward end of a drive fail first?
Because that end takes the weather and the other does not. The exposed elevation at Barton on Sea looks south west into the wind, so driven rain scours jointing sand out of that end of a block drive and keeps the edge damp between showers. Empty joints let blocks rotate under a wheel, and then the edge course pushes outwards. Topping the joints and rebuilding the restraint at that end beats lifting a drive that is sound behind it.
Our bungalow frontage is shallow. Is there room for two cars?
Often, though not in the shape people picture. Bungalows are 42.0% of the housing at Barton on Sea, and a single storey pushed forward on the plot leaves a short frontage, so two cars normally have to sit side by side rather than nose to tail. That needs the full width paved and the edge restraint carried right to the boundary, which is where thin drives fail. We mark the bays on the ground at the visit.
Is there a bad time of year to lay this by the sea?
Wind matters more than cold. At Barton on Sea a south westerly straight off the water dries a mortar bed and a resin mix far faster than the same day would inland, which pulls strength out of the joint and can skin a resin surface before it is closed. We screen the working area, adjust the mix and lay smaller sections in that weather. Frost stops mortar work outright, but a still cold day here is easier than a mild gale.
Nearby, and next door
Driveways near Barton on Sea
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Get a price for your Barton on Sea drive or terrace
Tell us what has sunk, opened up or gone slippery and we will come out, look under the surface and put a written price in front of you.