Driveways in Tarrant Monkton
Loose stone that has rutted, a patio that rocks, or nowhere to park at all. We open the ground first and price the base and the surface separately.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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A drive on the valley floor at Tarrant Monkton almost never fails at the surface. It fails because the ground under it stays wet from November onwards and there was never enough stone down to spread a car over it. We dig a trial hole on the first visit, tell you what depth of sub-base is actually there, and price the dig and the surface as separate lines so you can see which one you are paying for.
Tarrant Monkton drives are loose stone gone to ruts, cottage patios rocking, or no parking at all. Loose stone parking that has rutted into two tracks and turns to slop by February. A patio behind an old cottage that has started to rock, one flag sitting proud of the next, moss in every joint. And no proper parking at all, because the house went up long before anyone owned a car and what you have is a gateway, a bit of verge and a wall you cannot move.
All three want a look before anyone quotes. We come out, walk the fall of the ground with you, open a hole at the worst spot, and find out where your rainwater goes today and where it could go instead. Then it comes back in writing, with the excavation, the muck away, the sub-base, the edgings, the surface and the drainage set out one at a time.
The work
What we build along the valley lane
Loose stone that has stopped behaving. Most of the parking along the valley lane is gravel or hoggin, and it works right up until a tractor or an oil tanker turns on it. Then you get two ruts, a bank of stone thrown onto the verge, and puddles standing in the wheel tracks.
Loose stone is not a cheap surface, it is a surface that needs a base like any other. We excavate to formation, lay a geotextile membrane so the stone and the subsoil stop mixing, compact a proper depth of sub-base, then either bring the gravel back in a cellular grid or bind the first few metres at the gateway where the wheels turn hardest.
Block paving suits a turning area better than anything else, because the blocks move a fraction instead of cracking and a sunken bay can be lifted and relaid. It lives or dies on the edge restraint being haunched in concrete the whole way round and on kiln dried sand brushed into the joints. Gone wavy along one side is the edge letting go, not the base; weeds mean the sand has washed out and you need a re-sand, not a new drive.
Against a flint and brick cottage wall the damp proof course is often low, and on the oldest there is not one at all, so the finished level stays well down and you come out over a step, or a channel drain across the threshold does the job. Flags go on a full mortar bed, never five dabs, which is the commonest reason a patio rocks. For a terrace behind the cottage, see patios in Tarrant Monkton. The ground here holds water, so a soakaway needs a percolation test first. The lanes are narrow and some gateways narrower, so where a machine will not fit everything goes by barrow, and that shows in the price as time.
How it runs
How a new drive is built from start to finish
Thomas comes out, walks the frontage with you, looks at the levels and where rain runs off at the moment, and puts the price together himself. You keep one point of contact from the dig out to the new surface.
The written quote separates the digging and carting away of spoil, the stone base, the kerbs or edging, the surface itself, and the drainage. In a village street the grab lorry and skip need a place to stand, so that is settled with you, and with neighbours where it affects them, before we start. Machines come off the lane at night and the road is swept.
Should the digger find an old soakaway, a buried tank or ground that will not compact, it is photographed and priced for you before the dig goes any deeper.
Paving over more than five square metres in front of the house needs planning permission unless the surface lets water through or drains to a lawn, border or soakaway within your own boundary, which is how we build. Planning Portal guidance on paving your front garden sets it out. A terrace at ground level behind the house counts as permitted development. Where new paving meets a listed wall, listed building consent can come into it, and as the village is in the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area (Tarrant Monkton), it is also sensible to ask Dorset Council about the frontage.
Cost
What goes into the price of a drive
The dig comes first. What comes out is the first cost. Old concrete, a layer of hardcore and topsoil all have to go, by the grab load. The depth depends on what the drive has to carry. Cars need a deeper sub-base than a footpath, and a delivery van or trailer deeper again.
The ground. Ground that drains freely needs less underneath. Ground that stays wet needs more stone, sometimes a membrane, and a plan for where the rain goes. That is a design choice with a cost, not an extra.
Access. A Tarrant Monkton cottage that opens straight onto the lane means the lorry works from the road and every barrow crosses the frontage. A farmhouse with a yard is quicker. A long gravel run set back from the street means more dig and more muck away.
The surface. Gravel on a grid, block paving on a permeable build and resin bound stone each need a different base and edging, and they look different in a village setting.
Ask anyone else pricing it how deep the dig is and what the sub-base will be, where the surface water goes, and whether the edgings and muck away are included.
If it is urgent
A sunken drive or a slab you could trip on
Ring rather than use the form. A lifted slab by the door, a bay that has sunk under the car or a gully that has stopped taking water should be looked at soon, before somebody falls or water sits against the house.
If water is pooling against a Tarrant Monkton cottage wall, say so when you ring. Until we come, mark the trip with a bucket or a cone. The first visit lifts and re-beds what is dangerous and finds why it moved, often a broken drain or a soft patch in the sub-base. Then Thomas prices the proper repair. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. If we cannot pick up, we phone you back as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
Where the water goes decides the build here
The valley floor here holds water through the winter and lets it go again in summer, and that single habit decides more about your drive than the surface you pick. It means a soakaway is not the automatic answer.
It needs a percolation test first, and plenty of holes dug along this valley fill up in January and simply stay full. Approved Document H sets out the order you are meant to work through, and the SuDS thinking behind it is the same: hold the water where it lands if you can, and only move it on if you cannot. Where infiltration will not do it, the answer is a positive outfall to a ditch you are allowed to use, or a permeable build-up with enough open stone under it to swallow a downpour and let it away slowly.
The practical part is when you test. Dig a hole in August and the ground will take anything you pour into it, which tells you nothing about the night in February when it matters. We test when the ground is wet, or we design for the wet case and say so. The wet case also shapes where the falls run and where any outfall sits.
Set the falls so surface water runs away from the house, not into the strip beside the wall, and keep any outfall well clear of the footings. And do not let a new drive tip its water out onto the lane, because that is somebody else's problem by the time it freezes. If a neighbour has just built something that now sends water your way, raise it before you build yours.
Who you are dealing with
Who lays your drive in Tarrant Monkton
We are fifteen miles away in Boscombe and work across Tarrant Monkton, Tarrant Rawston, Tarrant Rushton, Tarrant Launceston, Blandford Forum and the villages either side of the valley on DT11. Dorset Council is the planning authority.
Your contract is with Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company number 15471719, which is Thomas Hannen's firm. He walks the ground and prices the drive himself. Checkatrade shows a verified customer's 10 out of 10 for us. The site visit is free and so is your written quote, itemised down to the edgings. Before you book a visit in Tarrant Monkton, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Tarrant Monkton?
Most repairs in Tarrant Monkton 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 Tarrant Monkton |
|---|---|
| Who decides | Dorset Council is the planning authority for Tarrant Monkton. Dorset Council's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | Yes: Tarrant Valley Conservation Area (Tarrant Monkton). Check whether your street is inside the boundary before changing anything visible. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Tarrant Monkton. If yours is one, work can need listed building consent. |
| Protected landscape | Inside the Cranborne Chase & West Wiltshire Downs National Landscape (formerly AONB), so anything visible from outside gets more attention. |
Questions
Questions about driveways in Tarrant Monkton
Will water soak away here, or does it need piping?
Whether water soaks away in Tarrant Monkton has to be tested first. The ground through the Tarrant valley is naturally wet, so a soakaway sized off a standard table can fill in its first winter and then stay full. A percolation test, in the real hole at the real depth, tells you whether infiltration works at all.
Where it does not, the surface is fallen to a channel and taken to a positive outfall, which is a different job and gets priced as one.
Will a tarmac drive be refused in the conservation area?
Refused is the wrong word, since most surfaces need no application in the first place. What the Tarrant Valley Conservation Area does is let the authority comment on how the frontage looks once a material changes, and a wide black apron in front of a village property is the version that attracts comment. Gravel, hoggin and a muted block are all straightforward. Dorset give a view before you commit to buying anything.
Is it worth waiting until summer to start?
On the wet ground at Tarrant Monkton it often is. The dig and the sub-base are the parts that suffer, because a formation churned up by a machine in February has to be taken out further and replaced with more stone than it should need. In a dry spell that same excavation stands up and the work is cleaner. If it cannot wait, we sheet the formation and stone it as we go instead of opening the whole area.
Where will the vans and the machine sit while you work?
On your ground wherever there is space for them, because parking on a village lane at Tarrant Monkton blocks it for everybody else. If the plot cannot take them we bring fewer vehicles and share, and the machine stays on site under cover rather than being trailered in each morning. The one thing genuinely needed is somewhere a lorry can stand for deliveries, and that gets agreed on the visit.
Gravel or block on a wet plot like ours?
Gravel over a cellular grid copes better with water, because the surface itself is open and the stone below holds a little before it drains away. Block works too, but on this sort of ground it wants permeable jointing and a reservoir base rather than the standard build. What usually settles it is how the frontage should look in a village setting, and whether a pram or a wheelchair has to cross it every day.
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A free site visit in Tarrant Monkton, a trial hole where it matters, and an itemised quote covering the dig, the base, the edges, the surface and the water.