Driveways and patios in Brockenhurst

Gravel drives, and keeping the gravel on them. A quarter of Brockenhurst predates 1919 and the largest single group of houses in the village went up before 1900, much of it set back behind loose stone. Plenty of those frontages run straight out to an open verge with nothing holding the edge, so the gravel walks off the plot. The build that works is a dug formation, a geotextile membrane, a sub-base compacted in layers and stone set into a cellular grid, with a haunched kerb or a timber border down both sides. Where the entrance falls towards the road we finish the last stretch in a bound surface so nothing travels onto the verge.

The Lymington River runs within twenty five metres of the village and a good part of it sits in flood zone 3, so on the low ground what the surface looks like is never the whole question. The ground is naturally wet and infiltration is not the default answer: a soakaway is sized off a percolation test rather than an assumption, and where the ground will not take it we look for a positive outfall instead. Permeable block paving is the surface we push hardest here, because the rain goes down through its own joints into the stone below rather than being moved somewhere else, and a single bay can be lifted and put back. Resin bound is the other flat option and it wants a sound base and a dry, mild day to go down.

Parking for lets and shared frontages. There are a lot of flats, converted houses and holiday lets in the village, so a fair share of the work here is parking that several people use: turning space rather than a straight run, edges that survive being driven over, and a surface that can be repaired one bay at a time without relaying the lot.

The older cottages sit low and generations of paving have built the ground up against them. Natural stone, porcelain and concrete slabs all go on a full mortar bed with a fall away from the wall, never on dabs. The finished level stays down off the damp proof course where there is one, and on a cottage with none we keep a drained gravel margin or a channel drain along the wall rather than running paving up to the brickwork. The rest is repairs and drainage: a channel drain cut in across a threshold, a lawful outfall for a downpipe, a silted gully cleared, a sunken bay relaid, a re-sand where the joints have emptied and the weeds have got in. Spoil is priced on its own line and the disposal named, whether it leaves by grab lorry, in a skip, or by barrow through a side gate.

There is no rate per square metre, because what is under the surface decides more of the price than the surface does. A Victorian house on the main street with nowhere to stand a lorry, a large detached in a wooded plot, and a converted flat sharing its parking are three different jobs before anything is dug. On ground this wet the depth of the dig and where the water is allowed to go carry most of it, and that means a percolation test rather than a guess. Ask what depth, what sub base, and who removes the spoil.

We cover Brockenhurst and SO42, out through Boldre, Sway and Lyndhurst towards Lymington, with the New Forest National Park Authority for planning and Hampshire County Council for the highway. Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which you can look up in a minute. Thomas Hannen's business, and he is the one who comes out to price the job, not a salesman. A verified customer's 10 out of 10 on Checkatrade. The visit and the written quote are both free.