Driveways in East Boldre
Gravel, resin bound, tarmac, concrete standings and stone patios across East Boldre and the Forest lanes. Free site visit, free written itemised quote.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Out at East Boldre the drive is usually a long one, and long drives fail in the middle, not at the house. Ruts, soft spots and standing water mean the stone has been pushed down into the ground underneath it, and no amount of fresh gravel on top will hold once that has happened.
Problems at East Boldre are rarely about the look of the thing. An entrance that has turned to a trench after a wet fortnight. A gravel drive that keeps ending up out on the verge, so the postman drives over grass and you are forever raking stone back in. A yard or a standing that has gone soft where a trailer sits. And, at the back of the house, a patio that has dropped towards the wall and now holds a puddle by the door.
All four have the same root, which is what is under the surface, not the surface itself. The free site visit is a spade and a look: we open a hole at the worst point, see how deep the stone goes and what it is sitting on, and tell you whether the answer is a re-lay, a new sub-base, or a bound top over a base that is sound already. You get that in writing before anybody starts.
The work
Long drives, gateways and yards around East Boldre
The entrance comes first. On a plot with a field gate the first few metres take every wheel that ever comes in, and that is where the potholes are. We dig out the soft ground, lay a geotextile membrane so the stone and the subsoil stop mixing, then build a sub-base in layers and compact each one.
Depth comes from what the ground is doing and what drives over it, because a horsebox and a hatchback are not the same load. A bound apron of tarmac or resin over that last bit stops loose stone being dragged out onto the verge every time you leave.
Loose stone works out in East Boldre, and it fails when it is tipped straight onto grass. Done right it is an excavation, a membrane, a compacted base, an edge restraint haunched in concrete along both sides, and only then the top course, kept shallow enough to walk on and drive on rather than wade through. Where a drive falls towards the road we build a camber and take the water off sideways so it never runs to one point and wash the surface with it.
Where the water goes. There is no surface water sewer to run into here, so it stays on the plot: a permeable build, a soakaway sized from a percolation test, not a guess, or a positive outfall to a ditch where one is yours to use. Approved Document H sets the order those should be considered in, and a drive that ponds or is staining green is almost always this rather than the surface. Patios and steps go on a full mortar bed with a fall away from the wall and the finished level set clear of the damp proof course and the threshold; for that work, see patios in East Boldre. Where there is block paving, the jointing matters as much as the blocks: kiln dried sand washes out of an open joint, weed gets into it, and a re-sand with a sound edge is what stops a wheel track going sunken.
How it runs
A new drive or gateway, from the dig to the surface
On his visit Thomas looks at the ground, the levels and where rainwater runs now, and pushes a bar into the soil to feel what is underneath. The quote lists excavation, muck away, the sub-base, edgings, the surface and drainage separately. The dig and the laying start once the price is agreed.
Access varies. Some plots have a field gate a tipper can back through, some a narrow frontage where the lorry must wait in the lane, some a soft verge that needs boards laid over it first. Machines and stone are kept inside your boundary, out of reach of grazing animals, and the lane is swept clean. Spoil leaves on our lorry. An old soakaway, a pipe or a pocket of soft clay found in the dig is shown to you and priced before the job moves on.
Paving round a house is usually permitted development, with the front garden rule as the catch: over five square metres of impermeable surface at the front needs planning permission unless it drains onto your own land, which the front garden paving rules set out. East Boldre lies inside the National Park, so the Park Authority is the planning route, and in a conservation area the look of a frontage is not wholly your call. We check which applies.
Cost
Clay, water and gateways: the cost of a drive
The surface you choose is not what drives the price. The ground under it is. Mixed ground. Sand and gravel sits over clay, silt and sand here, and it varies from plot to plot. A drive on it needs a firm, well compacted sub-base of the right depth, often over a geotextile membrane, or it ruts and sinks within a few winters.
Water. Where the dig reaches clay, water drains slowly, so a pit test decides whether a soakaway will work. Getting rid of the water, through a permeable surface, a channel drain or a longer pipe run to an outfall, is a large part of the cost. Approved Document H sets how surface water should be handled.
How machines get in. An open smallholding entrance, a pair of cottages on a tight frontage with the lorry standing in the lane, and a bungalow behind a hedge with a soft verge in front could hardly be more different before any digging starts.
The surface. Gravel lets water through and suits a rural frontage. Block paving, resin bound and tarmac each need their own base and edgings.
Any competing quote should tell you the dig depth, the sub-base and its thickness, where the water ends up, and who takes the spoil away.
If it is urgent
Ruts, washed-out stone or a flooded gateway
A drive is seldom an emergency, but a few things are worth a call before they get worse: a gateway churned into ruts, stone washing off a slope onto the lane, a lifted slab, or a gully that has stopped taking water.
Phone rather than using the form, and put a marker over any trip. The first visit looks at why the water is sitting where it is, fills or re-beds anything dangerous, and prices the proper repair. Our scheduled hours are Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If you cannot reach us, leave a message and we call you back.
Worth knowing
Where your ground ends, and who else has a say
The thing that catches people in East Boldre is not the paving, it is the strip between your gate and the tarmac. In a town you would simply be applying for a dropped kerb.
In a Forest village there is often no kerb to drop, and the grass in front of your boundary may not be yours at all: verges and open ground around East Boldre are frequently in other hands, and a new or widened access across one needs the say-so of whoever holds it as well as the highway authority. Planning Portal guidance on vehicle crossings covers the crossing itself, and the permissions that sit outside planning is the list of consents that sit outside the planning system, which is exactly where this one lives. Ask first. Redoing an entrance because it went in three metres to the left of where it was allowed is the most expensive way to learn it.
The second thing is that a loose surface next to open ground is a poor neighbour. Stone dragged out onto a grazed verge is a nuisance, and animals have a habit of standing exactly where you least want them. That is why we bind the first stretch by the gate and put a proper edge on the rest, and why a cattle grid or a gate that actually closes is worth as much to the drive as the stone is.
The village is in the Forest South East conservation area, so on a frontage that is visible from the lane the material is worth a moment's thought too: National Park heritage and conservation guidance sets out how the Authority looks at that, and the National Park Authority's interactive property map will tell you what applies to your own address before you commit to anything.
Who you are dealing with
A driveway builder you can check before you book
We lay drives in East Boldre, which sits 16.7 miles from Boscombe, home to our base, and in the lanes around it, out through Boldre and Brockenhurst and down to Lymington and the SO41 villages. Planning for this address is a matter for the NPA.
The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, and the owner, Thomas Hannen, walks the ground and prices the drive himself. On Checkatrade one verified customer has given us 10 out of 10. You get the visit and the line by line written quote free. Before you book a visit in East Boldre, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in East Boldre?
Most repairs in East 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 East Boldre |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for East 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 East 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 East Boldre
Who decides whether we can form a new entrance?
Two bodies, and they do not talk to each other. East Boldre is inside the New Forest National Park, so the Authority handles the planning side and takes a view on how anything visible is finished. The road itself belongs to the highway authority, which deals with the crossing and inspects it afterwards. Both are worth starting before a build is booked, because groundwork is quick next to paperwork.
Does the Forest South East designation limit how a drive looks?
It does, because that is a conservation area and appearance is its business. East Boldre falls inside Forest South East and there are eight listed entries in the parish, so a frontage reading as suburban in a forest setting is what draws comment. Loose stone, bound gravel or a muted paver settles in. Replacing what is already down with the same thing is maintenance and rarely an issue at all.
What stops a long gravel drive rutting where cars run?
Depth, angular stone and a base built for the job. Ruts form where a thin layer of rounded shingle sits on soft ground, so wheels shove it aside and then cut into whatever is beneath. A compacted stone base, an edge holding the sides in, and angular gravel at a sensible depth keep the running line firm. On a long entrance we bind the turning areas and leave the straight runs loose.
How do you get a machine in without rutting the grass?
Boards and a light machine. A tracked digger spreads its weight far better than a wheeled one, and run over ground protection along one fixed route it leaves grass flattened rather than torn up. We agree that route and use nothing else, keep the tipper off soft ground, and load from a firm point. East Boldre ground varies from plot to plot, and where it holds water grass is slow to recover, so the route is always protected.
Can the excavated soil be reused on the plot?
Often, and it saves a great deal of carting. Topsoil stripped off a new drive goes onto beds or a low bank where there is room for it, and clean subsoil can level a dip in a lawn. What has to leave is broken tarmac, concrete and anything contaminated, and that goes out in separate loads for recycling. Where there is nowhere on the plot to put the soil, it all goes out and the disposal is shown separately on the quote.
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Get a written price for your East Boldre drive
A free site visit, a hole dug at the worst point, and an itemised written quote with the method on it.