Driveways and patios in Matchams
Access drives, turning space, hardstanding and patios around Matchams, built from the formation up and priced line by line.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
Around Matchams the job is normally the approach rather than the front garden. A long drive off the lane fails where water sits on it and where the wheels always run, and the fix is a proper formation and the right depth of stone under it, not another load of scalpings tipped on top.
People ring us here for three things. The drive has rutted into a washboard and the potholes are back within weeks of being filled. There is a van, a caravan or a trailer with nowhere solid to stand once the ground softens. Or the patio has sunk at one corner, gone green in the shade and turned slippery enough that nobody uses it.
The first visit is a survey of the whole length, not a look at the worst ten feet. We walk it with you, find where water crosses it and where it stands, dig a hole to see what stone is actually under there, and ask what drives on it: a car and a car every day is one build-up, an oil tanker and a horsebox is another. Then you get a written price with the dig, the sub-base, the edges, the surface and the drainage listed separately.
The work
What we build out along the lanes here
Long approach drives. A drive that runs a hundred feet from the lane to the house is a small road and wants building like one: excavate to formation, a geotextile membrane over anything soft, then a compacted sub-base at a depth that suits the heaviest thing that comes down it. One delivery lorry on a thin base in February does more damage than a year of cars.
Tarmac is usually the sensible answer over that length, because it goes down fast, takes weight and patches. Resin bound over a sound concrete or tarmac base gives a quieter finish with no loose stone to carry indoors. Gravel is the cheapest to lay and the dearest to keep, so it wants a cellular grid, a haunched edge restraint and a channel drain at the top of any slope. Block paving earns its keep at the house end where you turn and park rather than down the whole length, and a standing for a caravan, a trailer or a works van needs a deeper build up than a car bay, because that load sits in one place for months.
The first few metres take the worst of it. Water coming down the lane wants in and loose stone wants out onto the road, so a channel drain across the entrance, a haunched kerb and a bound surface at the mouth deal with both at once. Where a drive crosses a roadside ditch the pipe under it has to be the right size and clear, or your drive becomes the dam. Round the back, flags go on a full mortar bed with the falls running away from the house, and under trees the honest advice is a surface with some texture you clean now and then rather than sealing your way out of it. Where a block area has emptied its jointing, a re-sand with kiln dried sand and a sound edge stops the weed and the rutting.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team from first visit to last, one person to ring, nothing sub-contracted out. The quote comes itemised: excavation, muck away, sub base, edgings, surface and drainage on their own lines, and the spoil goes with us.
On permission. Nothing out here is listed and no conservation area covers it, so the surface itself is your choice, which we cannot say on many of these pages. The rule that still bites is the front garden one: more than five square metres of new hard surface needs planning permission unless it is permeable or drains to a border, a lawn or a soakaway on your own land, which keeps it permitted development. A new or widened opening onto the lane needs a dropped kerb agreed with the highway authority. Planning Portal guidance on paving your front garden is worth two minutes before you order anything.
Cost
What decides the price of a driveway
Access decides more of this than the surface does. A long approach off the lane, a smallholding with a working yard to cross, and a house behind a gate with no turning space are three different jobs before anything is dug, because everything arrives and everything leaves by the same route, whether that is a machine and a grab lorry at the door or barrow runs through a side gate. The other half of it is the sub base: how deep the hole has to go, and how much muck leaves the site. When you compare quotes, ask what depth of stone is going in, where the surface water is going, whether the edgings are haunched, and who is taking the spoil.
If it is urgent
A trip hazard, or a drive that floods
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. If the drive is your only way in and it has washed into ruts, say so, because getting it passable again is often a load of stone and a day, not a rebuild. Outside Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, it is by arrangement.
Worth knowing
No listed buildings and no conservation area, so the constraint here is Green Belt
This is one of the few places on our patch with nothing on the heritage list and no conservation area over it, which makes the surface question simple. Nobody has to approve what the drive is made of.
The only thing standing between you and any surface you like is the water it sheds: over five square metres at the front, either the surface is permeable, or the water goes to a border, a lawn or a soakaway inside your boundary rather than out onto the lane. That is a design decision we make with you at the quote stage, and it is usually free to get right and expensive to get wrong.
What does bite around here is Green Belt, and it bites on structures rather than on surfaces. Resurfacing a drive, laying a patio or forming a parking area is not the kind of development it troubles. A carport, a garage, a large outbuilding at the end of the drive, or raising ground levels behind a retaining wall, can be.
So if your plan for the front includes a building as well as a surface, settle the permission question first: the drive can be built to suit the building, but only once you know the building is happening.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover Matchams, St Leonards, St Ives, Ashley Heath and Ringwood, and BH24 generally. 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
Matchams questions we get asked
There is nothing listed near us. Does that make it simpler?
It does. Matchams has no conservation area of its own and no listed entries at all, which is unusual on this patch. Nobody is going to argue about the colour of your blocks or the finish on a resin surface. What still applies is the surface water rule on a front garden, and, if you are putting up a structure rather than paving, the Green Belt designation. For paving alone the look of it is your decision.
Will a gravel drive stand up to a van on sand?
Only if it is built rather than tipped. The freely draining sandy ground around Matchams gives nothing to push against, so gravel without a bound base and a haunched edge migrates into the wheel tracks and then out onto the road. We dig out, compact a stone base, set the edgings in concrete, and put the gravel on last. A van also wants a deeper base than a car, which changes the dig depth rather than the surface.
Which side of the house needs the tighter patio detail?
The exposed face at Matchams looks south west, and driven rain works at edges, joints and thresholds rather than at the middle of a slab. So on that side we want a firmer edge restraint, a joint that will not wash out and a fall that clears water quickly. On the sheltered side the same paving can be detailed more simply. It changes the perimeter and the pointing, not the material you choose.
Does the Green Belt stop us making a parking area?
Not for laying a hard surface on ground that is already garden. Green Belt bites on new buildings, so a carport, a store or a stable beside the parking area is the thing to put to Dorset Council before you order anything. The paving itself is dealt with under the surface water rules instead. If there is a structure in the plan, tell me at the visit and we look at that part first.
How deep does the excavation go on ground like this?
Deeper than people expect. Sand looks like a ready made base and behaves like the opposite, so the topsoil and soft material come out until we reach something that will carry a wheel. Then it is built back in compacted layers. Trench sides also slump here while they are open, so drainage runs are dug in bays and backfilled the same day rather than left standing over a weekend.
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Tell us what comes down the drive and what it is doing now. The visit and the written itemised quote are free.