Driveways in Boscombe

Shared forecourts. Most homes in Boscombe are flats, many of them in big Victorian houses whose front gardens went to parking decades ago, usually as tarmac laid over whatever ground was there. Cars turning on the same few metres grind out a hollow, water stands in it, the base softens and the potholes follow.

Rebuilding one means digging out to firm formation, a geotextile membrane, a crushed stone sub-base compacted in layers, then heavy duty block paving or hot laid tarmac. We work half the bays at a time so residents can still park, and nothing is left unusable overnight.

Front gardens made into parking. On a Boscombe house with a small front garden the job is taking out the lawn or old slabs, digging to the depth a car needs, and building the edges properly. An edge restraint haunched in concrete is what stops block paving spreading, and it is the first thing a cheap drive leaves out. Permeable block paving on an open graded base lets rain soak through, which keeps planning simple and gives the water somewhere to go.

Where the water goes. Front gardens here are small, and Approved Document H wants a soakaway at least five metres from a building (the drainage guidance), which few Boscombe frontages can manage. So the drainage is designed rather than assumed: a permeable build up, a channel drain across the entrance to a proper outfall, or a fall to a planted border. Ponding against the house is how a drive ends up soaking the wall below the damp proof course.

The kerb. A new or wider dropped kerb is a separate application to BCP Council, with its own fees. On a classified road like Christchurch Road it needs planning permission as well. We set the levels of the drive to meet the crossing, so the order of work matters.

Resin, tarmac and concrete. Resin bound looks clean and drains, but it needs a sound base and does not enjoy tight turning, so we would steer a forecourt towards block or tarmac. Old concrete that has cracked across its bays usually has to come out; laying resin over it copies the cracks within a winter.

Relaying and maintenance. Sunken block paving and rutting in the wheel tracks of a Boscombe drive can often be lifted, the bedding re-screeded and the same blocks relaid, then jointed with kiln dried sand. Weed growth and green staining call for a clean and a re-sand, not a new drive.

When we would say no. A frontage too short for a car to sit off the pavement, or a resin surface on a forecourt where every car does a three point turn. Better to hear it before you pay.

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: excavation, muck away, the sub base, edgings, the surface itself and the drainage on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.

Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.

A house can pave its front garden without planning if the surface is permeable or drains to a lawn or border; anything over five square metres that sheds water onto the road needs permission, as Planning Portal guidance on paving front gardens explains. Most homes in Boscombe are flats, and flats have no permitted development rights for hard surfacing, so a forecourt outside a block usually needs planning and the freeholder's agreement. A dropped kerb is applied for separately. Boscombe has five conservation areas, and the council keeps the list.

Ring rather than use the form. A lifted slab, a sunken bay by a doorway or a gully that has stopped taking water are the ones that will not wait, because somebody falls or water ends up against the house.

The first visit is about making it safe and getting the water going somewhere, and we quote the permanent work once the ground can be opened up. On a forecourt shared by several flats, tell the managing agent as well, because the common parts are normally theirs to maintain and they will want the hazard recorded. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Boscombe has five conservation areas: Boscombe Spa, Boscombe Manor, Churchill Gardens, Knole Road and Undercliff Road. In a conservation area the low front walls, gate piers and hedges are usually part of the character the council is looking after, because a street of intact boundaries reads very differently from one where every frontage has been opened up for a car.

So if your house is inside one, the driveway question is really a boundary question. Taking down a front wall or railings can itself need permission there, as Planning Portal guidance on walls and gates points out, before any paving or kerb is considered. Check the council's map before you ask for prices. If you go ahead, a scheme that keeps the piers, keeps a planted strip and uses a clay paver or natural stone setts in a colour that suits the brickwork stands a far better chance than a full width of grey block. We price that kind of layout happily and will tell you plainly if we think the space is too tight to be worth applying for.

Nearby places we also cover for driveways, with straight-line distances from Boscombe, and the other trades we offer in Boscombe itself.

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