Driveways in Boldre
Drives and patios designed against a wet winter, with the ground tested before anything is promised about where the water goes.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Round Boldre a drive fails in winter or it does not fail at all. Everything we build is designed against a wet February, not the dry week you are standing in when you ask for the quote.
Drives around Boldre tend to fail along the lane, at the turning area and on shaded patios. A long drive off the lane that has rutted and potholed, with the gravel all washed to one end. A turning area that has gone soft, so the car leaves ruts in it every time it swings round. Or a patio in a shaded garden that is green, slippery and sitting in water two days after rain.
None of those is a surface problem. They are all the same problem, which is water with nowhere to go and a base too thin to carry a vehicle over wet ground. We come out, walk it, dig a hole and fill it with water, and tell you what the ground is actually going to allow.
The work
Long drives, wet winters and gravel that goes walking
Drives off the lane. Most properties in Boldre sit back from a narrow road, so the drive is long, often shared, and takes a delivery lorry two or three times a year as well as your car. Built thin it ruts under the wheels and hollows where you turn.
Built properly it is a dig to firm formation, a geotextile membrane so the stone cannot work down into soft ground, and a graded sub-base laid and compacted in layers to a depth set by what we find, not by a catalogue. On top of that, bound gravel, tarmac or permeable block all work, and loose gravel works too as long as it has a real edge restraint haunched in concrete holding it in.
The strip between your gate and the road is frequently verge you do not own, so re-grading it or laying stone across it is a question for the highway authority, not a design decision. It matters because that is exactly where water from the lane arrives on your land. A cross drain or a channel drain at the entrance, taken somewhere that can accept it, saves the rest of the drive more often than another hundred millimetres of stone would.
Turning areas and soft ground. A car turning does far more damage than a car driving straight, because it grinds rather than rolls, and on ground this slow to drain a turning head is the first thing to go soft. The honest answer is usually a deeper build up over a cellular grid on that part only, not across the whole drive. We would rather spend your money on the ten square metres that fail than on the eighty that never will, and a soakaway here wants a percolation test before anyone digs it.
Gardens here are green, sheltered and slow to dry, which is hard on paving. Sawn natural stone and porcelain both cope, porcelain on a full primed mortar bed, stone pointed by hand with a proper mortar, never a brushed in compound that fails in the wet. Concrete slab and older riven paving can be lifted, the base corrected and the whole thing relaid if the flags are sound. For the garden side of it, see patios in Boldre. Where a block drive has lost the kiln dried sand out of its jointing, a re-sand and a reset edge stops the wheel tracks going sunken and weed taking the open joints. Algae staining is a clean, not a replacement, and ponding in one spot usually means one thing has failed, not everything.
How it runs
From digging out the old drive to the last block laid
Thomas comes out, walks the drive with you and looks at what is under it where he can: the depth of the old gravel or tarmac, the soft patches, and where the water goes when it rains. He also checks whether the lane will take a delivery lorry. The quote lists excavation and muck away, the geotextile membrane, the crushed stone sub-base, the edgings, the surface, drainage and disposal.
Digging, laying and finishing come under the one quote. A long drive off a lane may take a small digger and a dumper, with a grab lorry for the spoil if it can get in. Where it cannot, we barrow. The work area is fenced, the lane kept clear, and you have a way in and out each evening. If the dig finds an old soakaway, a buried drain or soft clay deeper than expected, you see it in a photograph with a price before we carry on.
The New Forest National Park Authority decides planning, and its interactive property map shows what your plot carries, including the Forest South East Conservation Area over the old village, Bull Hill and Pilley. A front drive stays permitted development while the rain soaks away on your own land. More than five square metres draining onto the road needs planning, which is the front garden rule. A new vehicle crossing goes to Hampshire County Council as highway authority, and on a lane with a verge it is worth starting early.
Cost
Clay, lorries and long drives off the lane
Most of what a drive costs is below the surface, so a price per square metre does not help much.
The ground. Boldre sits on clay that shrinks in a dry summer and swells when it is wet. It holds water, so the dig often goes deeper, the sub-base is thicker, and a geotextile membrane stops the clay pumping up into the stone. A soakaway in clay often fails its test, so the water may need a permeable surface or a channel to a proper outfall.
Getting materials in. A lane that will not take a full lorry means smaller loads and more trips, and the spoil may have to be barrowed out to a grab lorry on the road.
The surface. Gravel over a stabilising grid, block paving on sharp sand, resin bound and tarmac all cost differently to lay, and each needs its own edging. On a long drive the edging alone can be a big part of the job.
Turning areas and gates. A turning circle that has gone soft needs digging out and a stronger base. A gate needs the levels set so it opens over the new surface.
Ask any other quote how deep the dig is, what sub-base is going down and how thick, where the rainwater ends up, and who takes the spoil away.
If it is urgent
Standing water, ruts or a slab that trips
A drive is rarely an emergency, but a few things are worth a call. If water stands in the same rut for days, photograph it before it dries, because where it sits shows us where the base has failed.
A block or slab lifted at the front door or the garage is a trip, so cover it until it is fixed. A gully that has stopped draining will flood the drive next time it rains. It is worth a phone call rather than the web form. We make it safe on the first visit, look at the base, and then price the proper repair. Our working hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we cannot pick up, we will phone you back as soon as we can.
The one local thing
The ground is wet, so a soakaway gets tested before it is dug
Boldre sits on naturally wet ground, with a water table that comes up close to the surface through the winter. That single fact undoes more driveways here than any amount of traffic. A soakaway dug in August in ground that looks fine will take everything you put into it, and the same hole in January is already full before the first drop of your rainwater arrives.
Then the water backs up, sits under the drive, softens the formation and the surface starts to move within a season or two. Anyone quoting a soakaway on this ground without having tested it is guessing with your money.
So we do the test, at the depth the soakaway would actually sit, and Approved Document H sets out how it is done and expects the thing to sit well clear of the building. If the ground takes water, the design is a permeable surface over an open graded sub-base that holds the rain and lets it go slowly, which is the whole idea behind what the drainage guidance calls SuDS.
If it does not, we stop pretending and give the water a positive outfall instead: a land drain to a ditch or a watercourse, with whoever owns it agreeing first. What it may never do is go into the foul drain or straight out onto the lane. The other thing wet ground changes is the build itself. A separation membrane stops the sub-base pumping down into softened ground, and the stone gets compacted in thinner layers than it would on a dry site, because a plate only densifies what is near the top of it.
Who you are dealing with
The firm laying your drive, and where we come from
Drives here are measured and priced by Thomas Hannen himself. He owns Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and he comes about thirteen miles from our Boscombe base to see yours. Before you book a visit in Boldre, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
We lay drives in the village, Pilley, Portmore and Bull Hill, and out to Lymington and Brockenhurst. Hard surfacing that needs planning goes to the National Park Authority, and a new crossing to Hampshire County Council. A verified Checkatrade customer scored us 10 out of 10. We charge nothing to come out, and nothing for the written quote with the dig, base and surface itemised.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Boldre?
Most repairs in Boldre 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 Boldre |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Boldre. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Forest South East Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Boldre. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the New Forest National Park, where design is looked at more closely and permitted development rights are narrower. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Boldre
Boldre is in the National Park. Does gravel need permission?
Loose gravel spread over a surface that already exists is not usually development at all, so it does not. What changes inside the New Forest National Park is that anything visible from a lane or a green gets considered on design grounds, and a wide area of new hard surface at Boldre is likelier to attract comment than the same thing in a town. Keeping it permeable and no larger than you need is what keeps it simple.
Our gravel keeps washing out onto the lane. What stops it?
Containment and a bound layer: on wet Boldre ground, water moving across the surface carries loose stone with it, so the fix is an edge standing proud enough to hold the gravel, a cross fall sending water into a channel, not down the slope, and either a resin bound or grid retained top so the stone cannot roll. Loose stone on a slope with no restraint will always finish up in the road.
Can paving be laid on ground that never dries out?
It can, as long as the water is dealt with rather than covered over. The ground at Boldre is naturally wet, so the dig goes deeper, a clean stone layer goes in over a geotextile that stops the subgrade pumping up into it, and that layer is given somewhere to drain to. Bedding straight onto soft wet ground is what produces a patio that rocks underfoot by the second winter.
Our house dates from the eighties. Is the original drive worth keeping?
Often the layout is worth keeping and the construction is not. Much of Boldre's housing went up between the early eighties and the late 2000s, and drives from that period commonly went down on a shallow base that has since worked its way into soft ground. Where the levels and the fall are right we keep the setting out and rebuild underneath. Where the drive falls towards the house, the rebuild is the chance to change that.
Is there a month you would avoid starting out here?
Midwinter, on this ground more than most. Boldre lies wet, and an open excavation in January fills faster than it empties, which means pumping, matting and a soft base to build off. Frost stops mortar bedded work as well. Lifting and relaying over existing stone is still fine in winter, but a full dig out on a wet plot is better booked for a drier stretch, and we will say so rather than push it.
Nearby, and next door
Driveways near Boldre
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Get a written price for your drive or patio
A free visit in Boldre, a percolation test where it matters, and an itemised quote with the base and the drainage priced separately.