Driveways in Breamore
Drives, yards, paths and patios in Breamore and the SP6 addresses along the Avon valley, built from the bottom up.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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On ground as wet as Breamore's, the thing that decides your drive is not which surface you like. It is where the water is going to go once the surface is down, and that gets settled with a hole in the ground before anything is priced.
Out here the trouble tends to start on the slope, the turning area or the patio. The gravel has all washed to the bottom of the slope and the top of the drive is bare. The turning area by the barn has gone to mud again and a car has sat in a rut all winter. Or the stone patio is green, slippery and holding water in the dips, and somebody nearly went over on it.
None of that is fixed by more gravel or a stronger clean. It is fixed by getting the water off the surface and away, and by building something underneath that will not turn to porridge every February. We come out, look at the fall of the land and the ground itself, and tell you what will actually last on your plot. The site visit and the written quote both cost nothing.
The work
Drives, yards and paths in a village of old buildings
Gravel drives that stay where they are put. Loose stone is the natural choice here, because it suits the cottages and the farm entrances and it is what the village already looks like.
Done properly it is a dug formation, a geotextile membrane, a compacted sub-base and only then the gravel, held at the sides by a haunched kerb or a timber border. On any slope we set the stone into a cellular grid so it cannot travel, because loose gravel on a fall ends up in the road and then it is your neighbour's problem as well as yours.
Where a loose surface will not do, resin bound over a sound base gives the same look with a firm top, which matters if somebody at the address uses a stick or a wheelchair. Permeable block paving is the other option and drains through itself rather than shedding to one corner. Both want more depth here than they would on free draining ground, which is a cost we would rather explain at the quote than discover halfway through. A yard that takes a horsebox or a delivery lorry is different again: deeper excavation, a coarser sub-base, and concrete or heavy duty tarmac where the turning happens.
Thresholds on old buildings. The cottages here have had ground built up against them for a very long time, and the internal floor is often lower than the garden, so laying a new patio straight up to the wall is the quickest way to make a dry room damp. Natural stone and porcelain both go on a full mortar bed with a fall away from the building, the level kept down off the damp proof course where there is one, and where the ground gives no room we drop a step, run a channel drain along the wall, or leave a drained gravel margin against the brickwork. For a garden terrace, see patios in Breamore. With sixty three listed entries in the parish and a conservation area over the village, what a frontage is finished in is part of the question rather than a free choice.
Relaying a sunken bay, repointing a stone patio where the mortar has blown, a re-sand on block paving that has emptied its joints, clearing a gully, cutting in a land drain and finding an outfall for it are all jobs worth doing on their own. Spoil goes on its own line: a grab lorry where one can get in, a skip where it cannot, and the disposal priced rather than buried in a rate.
How it runs
A new drive or entrance in a village setting
Thomas comes out and looks at the frontage, the levels, the gate, and how a lorry can get in. In Breamore that can be a gravel drive behind a front wall, a narrow gateway off the street, or a wide farm entrance.
He also asks where the water goes now. Every stage has its own line on the written quote: how deep we dig and what we take away, the sub-base and geotextile membrane under it, the edging, the surface you choose, and the drainage. The dig and the laying come under one written quote.
Being 16.1 miles out, the machine, skip and materials all come in one planned window, so the drive is out of use for as short a time as possible. The lane is swept each evening. If the dig turns up an old drain, a buried wall or soft ground, you get photos and a price before we carry on.
Over five square metres, a hard front surface that drains onto the road needs planning permission, while permeable paving or a soakaway on your land keeps it permitted development, and the Planning Portal explains the rule. A wall, pier or gate is separate, covered by Planning Portal guidance on walls and gates. Before anything changes at the front, check with New Forest District Council, since Breamore is in the Breamore Conservation Area, and remember a listed building needs consent first. Anything on the highway is Hampshire County Council.
Cost
What decides the price of a drive or entrance
Getting in sets the pace. A narrow gate means small machines and barrows, which is slower. A wide entrance lets a digger and a grab lorry in. A skip or grab lorry also needs somewhere to stand on a narrow lane.
The surface. Gravel on a proper sub-base with a stabilising grid, resin bound gravel, block paving and natural stone setts all cost differently. On an older property a gravel or setts finish often suits the setting better than bright new block paving, and where consent is involved, it may be what is allowed.
The ground and the water. How deep the dig goes, what comes out, and where rain can go all change the price. In the Avon valley it is worth looking at the government flood check for your address before designing the drainage. A soakaway only works if the ground will take the water.
Walls, piers and gates. Rebuilding a front wall in matching brick or flint, or setting new gate piers, is skilled work and priced separately.
The distance. Materials are delivered in planned loads, not dropped off when needed.
Ask any quote for the dig depth, the sub-base, the drainage plan, and who takes the spoil away. Those four explain most of the gap between two prices.
If it is urgent
A sunken drive or water standing against a wall
If a paving flag has lifted by a doorway, or a section of drive has sunk, mark it so nobody trips in the dark. If a gully has stopped taking water and it is standing against an old wall, clear the grate of leaves first, which often helps.
If it still will not drain, call rather than using the form. Our groundwork is booked Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and any missed call is returned once we are free to talk. Breamore is one of our longer runs, so you will get a straight answer about timing. The first visit makes it safe and gets the water moving.
Worth knowing
Wet ground here, and why the soakaway question comes first
The valley ground through Breamore holds water. It sits wet for months rather than days, and the water table can be close enough to the surface that a hole dug in January fills up while you are looking at it. That has a direct effect on paving.
A sub-base built on saturated ground never gets properly compacted, and a surface laid on it settles unevenly within a year or two, which is where most sunken bays and ponding on ground like this actually come from.
It also decides the drainage. Soaking rainwater away into the ground is the default answer everywhere else and it is not the default answer here. Approved Document H expects a soakaway to be shown to work with a percolation test, and on ground like this it often fails one.
When it does, the water needs a positive outfall instead: a surface water drain, a ditch or a watercourse, with whoever owns it agreeing first. Sometimes the honest answer is a smaller area of hard surface and a wider gravel margin, so there is less water to move in the first place. We will tell you that on the visit, because finding it out after the dig is open costs everybody money.
Who you are dealing with
Who prices your drive in the Avon valley
Thomas Hannen, who owns the business, walks your frontage and prices the drive himself. Breamore is 16.1 miles out from his Boscombe base, and he also works up the valley in Woodgreen, Hale and Rockbourne, and down towards Fordingbridge.
Planning questions go to New Forest District Council, while Hampshire County Council looks after the road. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd is registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, open to anyone on Companies House. A verified customer's score on Checkatrade is 10 out of 10. There is no fee for the site visit or for the itemised quote in writing. Before you book a visit in Breamore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Breamore?
Most repairs in Breamore 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 Breamore |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest District Council is the planning authority for Breamore. The National Park boundary runs close by, and the Park's property map shows which side an address falls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Breamore Conservation Area. Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Breamore. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | No National Park or National Landscape covers Breamore. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Breamore
Does the Breamore conservation area control what surface we lay?
Appearance is what it controls, so the material matters more than the area covered. Breamore is a conservation area, and replacing a gravel or stone surface with the same thing counts as maintenance, while switching to a modern block or a coloured resin is a change the local planning authority can ask to see first. None of it stops you having a usable drive. It steers you towards a covering that sits with what is already there.
63 entries are listed in Breamore. Does that reach a track?
It reaches the buildings and their curtilage, not the open land between them. Breamore has 63 listed entries, among them a barn 30 metres south of Home Farm Cottages, so paving running up against an old building can need listed building consent alongside the conservation area question. A track across a field is a different matter. Which one applies gets established before anything is priced, because getting that wrong here is expensive to undo.
Can rainwater from a new hard surface soak into this ground?
Sometimes, and Breamore is not a place to assume it. The ground here is naturally wet, so a soakaway gets tested with a pit and a stopwatch before it goes on a drawing. Where it fails, the water has to reach a positive outfall instead, and this close to the River Avon that route wants thinking about instead of guessing at. The test costs a morning and saves rebuilding a drive that ponds every winter.
Breamore is sixteen miles from you. Is a small job worth it?
It is if it can be grouped. Breamore is around sixteen miles out, so a half day repair on its own is awkward, but Thomas will still come and look and tell you plainly whether it is worth doing now or worth waiting until there is more of it. The visit and the written itemised quote cost nothing either way. Where a neighbour wants work too, running both together makes the trip sensible.
How do materials reach us if a wagon cannot get down?
In smaller loads, with a dumper doing the last stretch. Where a full wagon cannot reach a Breamore property we tip at the nearest hard standing we have permission to use, then run stone in over boards or mats so the verge and the grass survive it. Spoil leaves the same way. It is slower, it gets planned before the first load arrives, and it appears as its own line on the quote.
Nearby, and next door
Driveways near Breamore
Nearby places we also cover for driveways, with straight-line distances from Breamore, and the other trades we offer in Breamore itself.
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Our other trades in Breamore
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Get a price for paving in Breamore
Give us the address and tell us what the ground does in winter. We come and look at the fall, the access and the drainage, then put it in writing line by line, at no charge.