Driveways and patios in New Milton
Estate drives relaid, concrete broken out, front gardens turned into parking and patios rebuilt across New Milton and BH25.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
If the drive went down with the house, the blocks are rarely what has failed. It is the edge restraint and the sub-base under the wheel tracks, and which of those has gone decides whether you need a re-lay or a rebuild. We open a hole in the tracks when we come out to New Milton, and tell you which one you are looking at.
Most of what we get asked about in New Milton is the same age as the house it sits in front of. A drive laid when the estate was built has sunk into two ruts, gone green and grown weed through the joints.
A concrete apron in front of a garage has crazed and cracked at the joints and now catches a toe. A second car has arrived and the front garden is the only place left to put it. Or a patio at the back of a bungalow has settled and sits too close to the door.
We come and measure it, dig where it matters, and then write it down. Excavation, muck away, the sub-base, the edgings, the drainage and the surface all get their own line on the quote, so you can compare it properly with anybody else and see exactly where the money goes. The visit and the written price cost nothing.
The work
Estate drives at the end of their first life
Block paving that has done forty years. The kiln dried sand washes out of the joints, the blocks stop bracing each other, and the edge restraint gives way where it was only ever bedded into soil. Then you get rutting in the wheel tracks, sunken bays and a spreading edge. Where a trial hole shows the sub-base is still sound and the ground has not moved, the job is a lift, a relay to proper falls, a haunched kerb along the open sides and a fresh re-sand, which is a fraction of a new drive. Where the base has gone to mud, relaying the same blocks over it buys a year.
Older concrete cracks along the joints, lifts at the edges and stains where a car has stood. Breaking it out is dusty work and the disposal is a real line on the quote, because broken concrete costs more to take away than soil. If it is sound and flat, a resin bound surface over it works well and is quick. If it rocks underfoot, resin will crack in the same places within a couple of winters, and we will say so rather than take the work.
Making room for a second car. The first measurement is depth from the back of the footway to the bay window, because a car that overhangs the pavement has solved nothing. The second is what the front garden is sitting on. The build up is an excavation to formation, a geotextile membrane, a compacted sub-base and then whatever surface you want, with the edge held on the open side. The crossing over the footway is applied for separately and it is usually the part that takes longest, so it is the part to start first.
A quarter of the homes here are flats, and the courts behind them take heavier turning than any private drive, usually with a gully or two that stopped taking water years ago. We survey those and put a written itemised price in front of a freeholder or a managing agent, so there is a real figure to work from. At the houses a low threshold is the whole design: porcelain and natural stone on a full mortar bed, paving stopping well below the damp proof course, and where level access matters a channel drain across the threshold with a proper outfall rather than building the patio up to meet the door. Salt reaches this far inland too, so metal edgings and gratings get chosen with that in mind.
How it runs
From your call to a written price
Same team start to finish, one person to ring, nothing sub-contracted. The quote itemises excavation, muck away, sub base, edgings, surface and drainage on separate lines.
On permission. Replacing like for like is maintenance and needs nothing at all. A new hard surface at the front over five square metres that drains onto the road needs planning permission from New Forest District Council, and the Planning Portal sets out the test. Keep it permeable, or fall it to a border or a soakaway on your own ground, and it stays permitted development. The crossing over the footway is a separate matter and goes to the county highway authority rather than the planning department, as the guidance on dropped kerbs explains.
Cost
What decides the price of a driveway
Depth from the back of the footway is the first measurement, not area. A terraced house with a bay barely a car deep, a semi on an eighties close with a garage at the end of a tandem drive, and a flat sharing a parking court are three different jobs before anything is dug, because access decides whether a grab lorry takes the spoil or every barrow load goes out through a side gate. Breaking out old concrete costs more to cart away than soil does. Ask what depth of stone is going in and who is paying the tip charge.
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 silted gully will not wait: somebody falls, or water ends up against the house. Here it is usually a sunken bay outside a front door, or a gully in a parking court flooding a bin store every time it rains. We make it safe, then price the rest. Outside 8am to 6pm, Monday to Friday, by arrangement.
Worth knowing
A dry summer, and where your drive puts the water
The subsoil around New Milton shrinks when it dries out and swells again when it wets up. You see it first in the paving, as a slow dip along one edge or a line of blocks that will not stay level however often they are lifted, and you see it in the cracks that open at the corner of a garage or a single storey extension built on shallow footings.
Once you know the ground behaves that way, where a new drive sends its water stops being a detail and becomes part of the design. Approved Document H is the reference, and the short version is that a soakaway belongs well away from the building, not tucked against the wall where it is cheapest to dig it.
What that means in practice on a normal front garden: spread the water rather than concentrate it, which is what a permeable build-up does, and if there has to be a soakaway then place it out at the front boundary and test whether the ground will actually take it before it is drawn on a plan. One more thing that catches people out.
If a mature tree has to come out to make room for parking, ground that has been kept dry by that tree for decades will slowly take water back up and swell, and it can go on doing it for years after the stump has gone. That is a conversation to have before the tree comes down, not after the drive is laid over it.
Who you are dealing with
A local firm you can check
We cover New Milton and BH25, from Ashley and Bashley down through Barton on Sea and along to Milford on Sea and Everton. 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
New Milton questions we get asked
The blocks have sunk in the wheel tracks. Replace everything?
Usually not. Ruts in the tracks mean the base under them has moved while the rest is still sound, so we lift the affected bays, re dig and recompact, then relay the same blocks. 33.4% of New Milton dates from 1983 to 2008 and plenty of those drives were built on a thin base for a lighter car than people park now. The edge restraints get checked at the same time, because sinking normally starts at a loose edge.
How soon can we park on it once you finish?
It depends on the surface. Block paving carries a car as soon as the joints are filled and the edges have gone off. Resin has to cure first, and in a cold snap that runs longer than the brochure suggests. Concrete needs the most patience of the three. The date goes on the written quote and we do not hand a drive over early, because the first wheel on a green surface leaves a mark that stays.
Are we close enough to the sea for it to matter?
At 2.8km, yes, and it shows up in the metalwork rather than the paving. Salt drifting inland eats the fixings in an edge, gate frames and the brackets on a bin store, and once rust starts it bleeds into pale block and will not come out. Damp also lingers on a shaded path between showers and feeds the green film. So fittings are specified for the setting and nothing is left where water can stand.
Will the front garden be usable while you are on site?
Mostly. The dig and the muck away are the first day or two and that is the disruptive part; after that it is a stone base you can walk over. Materials stand on boards rather than on the grass, a route to the front door stays open, and the road gets swept each evening, which matters when the terraced and semi detached frontages here sit straight onto the footway. Nothing loose is left out overnight.
What actually stops the edge of a drive spreading?
A haunched concrete edge, laid before the surface goes down. On the tighter New Milton plots a drive often runs right up to a boundary or a neighbour's path, and with no restraint the blocks creep sideways and the joints open into lines you cannot close again. Where the boundary is a fence we keep the concrete inside your line so nothing bears on their posts. That detail decides whether a drive still looks square in ten winters.
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Get a price for a drive or patio in New Milton
Tell us the address and what you want doing. We will measure it, dig a hole where the wheels stand and put an itemised price in writing. Both are free.