Driveways and patios in Christchurch
Block paving, resin bound drives, tarmac and patios across Christchurch and BH23. We put the base right first, then price the surface in writing.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
If your Christchurch block paving has sunk in the wheel tracks, it does not need replacing. It needs lifting, the base putting right underneath, and the same blocks going back down. We will tell you which of those two jobs you are looking at before we price anything.
Three calls come in more than any others here. A drive laid in the eighties has gone wavy and green and the joints have washed out. A front garden needs turning into somewhere to park, because the street outside will not take another car. Or a small back garden has a cracked concrete slab on it and the owner wants a proper patio they can put a table on.
We come out, take levels, check where the water currently goes, and put an itemised written price in front of you. If the existing surface can be saved we will say so, because relaying good blocks is cheaper than buying new ones and we would rather you spent the difference on the base.
The work
What we get called to across Christchurch
Sunken and rutted block paving. Nearly a third of the town was built or re-fronted between 1983 and 2008, the peak of it in the eighties, and those drives are now at the age where the surface is fine but the ground under it has settled. We lift the affected bays, re-compact and correct the sub-base, reset the blocks to a proper fall and then re-sand the whole drive with kiln dried jointing sand so the colour is even. Ponding, weeds and a wobbling edge nearly always come back to the same two faults: a shallow base, and edgings that were never haunched.
Front gardens turned into parking. A quarter of the housing here is terraced, and on the streets close to the centre off-street parking is the single job that changes daily life the most. It is a full dig out to formation, a geotextile membrane, a compacted sub-base at the depth the ground needs, edge restraint down both sides and a permeable surface so the run-off is not pushed into the highway. The crossing itself is separate work with the council, and we can lay everything on your side of the boundary ready for it.
Courtyard patios behind the terraces are small, walled, and reached only through the house or a side gate, so every barrow load of spoil comes out the way it went in and there is nowhere to stand a machine. That changes the method rather than the result: porcelain or natural stone on a full mortar bed, laid to a fall away from the house, with the finished level kept well below the damp proof course and the threshold. Where the garden is lower than the door we build in a step rather than ramping the paving up to meet it.
Breaking out a cracked concrete slab is often the biggest single line on a quote, and that is the disposal rather than the breaking. Where a lorry can get in it goes out by grab lorry, otherwise it is a skip and a lot of barrowing. Sometimes the slab is sound enough to stay and take resin bound stone or new paving over the top, which saves you the lot, so we always look at that first.
Two kilometres from open water, everything grows faster and dries slower, and salt in the air keeps a surface damp between showers. Algae on a north-facing patio is a slip risk long before it is an eyesore, and staining around a downpipe usually means the water is not reaching a gully. Both are cheaper to deal with than to live with, and neither is a reason to lift a good surface.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Excavation, muck away, sub base, edgings, surface and drainage each get their own line on the written quote. Paving a front garden is normally permitted development where the surface is permeable or the water runs to a border or a lawn, and the five square metres threshold is the part most people have not heard of. A dropped kerb is applied for separately through BCP Council as a highway matter, the same authority but a different department. Christchurch has its own conservation area over the historic centre and twenty four listed entries, and inside it appearance and materials carry more weight than they would elsewhere: the council keeps the list.
Cost
What decides the price of a driveway
No rate per square metre, because what is under the surface decides more of the cost than what goes on top. An eighties house with a straight drive off the road, a town terrace where everything goes through a side alley, and a block of flats with a shared court that has to stay in use are three different jobs at identical square metres. Surface water has to be dealt with on the property rather than pushed into the highway. Ask what depth, what sub base, where the water goes, and who takes the spoil.
If it is urgent
A trip hazard, or a drive that floods
Ring us rather than use the form. A lifted slab, a bay sunk by a doorway or a silted gully will not wait, because somebody falls or the water ends up against the house. On the low ground near the rivers we see gullies silted solid and drives that pond against a doorstep. We are under four miles away. The phone is answered 24 hours for emergencies; scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.
The one local thing
Shared parking courts, and who is allowed to order the work
Getting on for two in five homes in Christchurch are flats, which means a lot of the parking here is not a private drive at all. It is a communal court, a shared access or a row of bays belonging to the block, and the tarmac or paving on it is usually as old as the building. The practical problem is rarely the work. It is that no single resident owns the surface, so nobody rings anyone, and the potholes and the ponding get worse for another decade.
If you are a leaseholder, this is worth knowing. Where the freeholder or the managing agent intends to spend on major works, and each leaseholder's share passes the statutory threshold, they have to consult you first under Section 20 of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985.
Part of that process lets leaseholders nominate a contractor for the agent to obtain a quote from. So you are not stuck with whoever they always use. We are happy to price a court, a shared drive or a bin store approach for a residents' association or an agent, in the same itemised form we would give a homeowner, and to phase it so half the bays stay usable while the other half is dug out.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Christchurch, Mudeford, Highcliffe, Burton and the rest of BH23, and we are under four miles from the town, so a look at a drive is not a special journey. 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.
Questions
Christchurch questions we get asked
We are in Christchurch Central. Does a new drive need consent?
The conservation area governs how things look, so it depends what is changing. Christchurch Central covers the older core, and there are twenty four listed entries in the town, so a frontage in view of the street is not a free choice of material. Renewing what is there in the same form is maintenance. A change of surface, colour or edging is the point to ask Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole first.
Our block paving went down in the eighties. Relay or replace?
Look at the blocks before deciding. The 1980s is the largest single building period in Christchurch at 14.5%, and much of the town's original block paving is that age, but blocks normally outlast whatever is under them. If they are sound and merely rutted and lumpy, they come up, the base is rebuilt and compacted properly, and the same blocks go back down on fresh sand. Worn, thin edged blocks are a replacement.
Will the ground in Christchurch take a soakaway?
More often than not. The ground here is freely draining, which is a better starting point than much of this area, so infiltration is usually workable, though it still gets a test pit rather than an assumption. The part needing care is position. That same ground shrinks and swells, so the soakaway goes well away from foundations and from a neighbour's wall, not tucked beside the house because it is convenient.
Our terrace has no side gate. How does the back get done?
By hand, and by planning it properly. Terraced houses are 25.7% of the housing in Christchurch, so this comes up constantly. We board a protected route through the property, or take material across a neighbour's ground where they agree, and everything moves in and out in barrow loads. Sometimes a fence panel comes out and goes back at the end. The extra labour is shown as its own item, not hidden in a total.
Christchurch is close to your base. How soon can someone look?
Quickly. The town is under four miles from where we work out of, so a look at a drive or a terrace here is normally a matter of days rather than weeks, and Thomas Hannen does the visit himself rather than sending anyone else. He measures, digs a check hole where one is needed, and the written itemised quote follows. Being this close also makes small put right jobs worth doing.
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Driveways and patios near Christchurch
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Free site visit anywhere in BH23, free itemised quote, and an honest answer on whether your existing surface can be saved.