Driveways in Thorney Hill
Long drives that have rutted, hardstandings for a caravan or trailer, and bungalow patios relaid at the right level, across Thorney Hill and the BH23 forest edge.
The site visit is free and so is the written itemised quote. Thomas Hannen prices every job himself.
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Drives around Thorney Hill are long, they are used by heavier vehicles than a hatchback, and they sit on ground that stays wet for months at a time. That combination is what wears them out. The fix is nearly always more depth and better drainage under the same surface you already have, not a smarter surface laid on the same tired base.
Thorney Hill jobs are rutted drives, bungalow patios sitting too high and hardstandings for caravans or trailers. A gravel or tarmac drive that has worn into ruts and holds standing water halfway along it. A rear patio at a bungalow, laid in concrete flags when the house was built, that has settled, gone green and now sits too high against the wall. And a hardstanding wanted for a caravan, a trailer or a second vehicle, on a plot with plenty of room but nowhere obvious for the water to go.
All three are straightforward once somebody has actually dug a hole and looked. We come out, open the ground in a corner, and tell you what you are dealing with before you commit to anything. The visit is free and so is the written itemised quote.
The work
Long drives, big plots and 1970s bungalows
Drives that have rutted. Four in ten homes in Thorney Hill are detached and a fifth are bungalows, which in practice means long drives on generous plots, often gravel or tarmac laid decades ago on very little.
They fail in the wheel tracks first: the stone thins, the ground beneath softens, and once water sits in the rut it takes the base apart from below. Topping up the gravel treats the symptom. We strip back to a firm formation, lay a geotextile membrane so ground and stone stay separate, and build a compacted sub-base with the depth the traffic actually needs, then finish in gravel, tarmac, resin or block. On a drive that carries a horsebox or a builder's tipper, the extra depth in the base is the cheapest part of the job.
The last few metres to the road. On plots set well back, the entrance takes all the turning loads and gets all the mud. It is worth building the apron properly even when the rest stays gravel: a bound surface for the first stretch, a haunched kerb to hold it, and a fall that sends water back onto your land, never out onto the carriageway. A new opening or a widened one is a dropped kerb application to Hampshire County Council as highway authority, and they set the construction for the crossing itself.
Bungalows and the level at the back door. Four in ten homes here went up between the war and the early eighties, and the original rear paving is concrete flags on sand that has settled, opened its joints and crept up the brickwork with each repair. We take it up, correct the base and relay in stone, porcelain on a full mortar bed or block jointed with kiln dried sand, back below the damp proof course and falling away from the house. For that work, see patios in Thorney Hill. This ground holds water, so a soakaway gets a percolation test first, and paving laid flat ponds.
Hardstanding for a caravan, boat or trailer is common here because the plots allow it, and a standing that takes a static load all winter is a different build from a car bay: more depth, a wider spread of load, and a surface that will not deform under a jockey wheel. Reinforced concrete, a heavy duty block or a cellular grid filled with gravel all work, and the grid stays green and stays permeable.
How it runs
Laying a new drive on a generous forest edge plot
Tell us what you want: a drive for more cars, a gravel turning circle replaced, or cracked concrete taken up. Plots here are often generous, with the house set back from the lane. Thomas comes out, measures, takes levels, looks at where the water goes, and prices it himself. One quote covers the dig and the laying.
The quote itemises excavation, muck away, the sub-base, edgings, the surface and drainage. Where a grab lorry can turn on the drive, spoil goes quickly; where it has to stand on the lane, we keep the road clear and swept. The house stays reachable on foot throughout the job. Soft clay, old footings or a drain in the way are photographed and priced before we deal with them.
A new hard surface in your front garden stays permitted development so long as the rain stays on your land: above five square metres it must be permeable, or run off to a lawn, border or soakaway within the boundary, which is what the front garden paving rules set out. Run it into the road and it needs planning permission. Planning here is the New Forest National Park Authority, and the highway authority is Hampshire County Council, so a new entrance off the lane can involve both.
Cost
What decides the price of a drive on clay
The layers you never see set most of the price of a drive, not the finish you choose. Where the machine can go. A plot where the lorry turns on the drive is the cheaper end.
A house set well back, where the digger shuttles up and down all day, costs more, and a frontage where the wagon stands on the lane more again. A back garden reached only by barrow through a side gate takes longer than the same area out front.
The ground. This is cohesive clay that shrinks and swells. It needs a thicker, well compacted sub-base and often a geotextile under it, or the drive rolls and rucks within a few winters.
Where the water goes. Clay does not soak water away quickly, so a soakaway may need to be larger, or the water sent to a border or a permeable build-up designed to the permeable paving guide. Water left beside a foundation on this ground is a structural issue, as Approved Document H sets out.
The surface. Gravel, block paving, tarmac and resin bound gravel each need a different base and edging, and gravel on a slope needs a grid to stop it walking.
Ask every firm quoting for the excavation depth, the sub-base specified, and where the rain will go.
If it is urgent
Standing water, a sunken bay or a lifted edge
A kerb or block that has lifted, a dip where you get out of the car, or a gully that no longer drains is worth a call now, because a trip or water against the house will not wait.
If water has started standing where you walk, say so: on this clay a small dip turns into a soft hole in one wet month. The first visit makes it safe and finds out why it moved. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For an urgent problem, phone; if you get no reply, we will call you as soon as we can.
Worth knowing
You are inside the National Park, and the verge is not yours
Thorney Hill sits inside the New Forest National Park, which changes who decides about a driveway and what happens at the verge. The first is who decides. Planning here goes to the park authority rather than to a district council, and its interest is in what the place looks like from the road.
That is not a reason to expect a fight over a drive, because paving your own frontage is usually permitted development anyway, but it is a good reason to choose the plainer answer where the work is visible.
Gravel, self binding gravel and a gravel grid all read as rural, and they are permeable, which quietly answers the drainage rule at the same time. A wide sweep of bright block paving right on the road frontage is the one that attracts comment. The park authority keeps an interactive property map, and it is worth looking your own address up before you order anything, because designations here sit on individual properties rather than on whole streets.
The second thing is the verge. On a good many of these lanes the grass between your boundary and the tarmac is open forest, not part of your garden, and it may be grazed. You cannot simply gravel across it, park on it, or widen an entrance into it, and the crossing has to be formed under the highway authority instead.
It matters in a plainer way too: where animals have the run of the verges, a standing needs to be long enough to get the whole car off the road and the gates need room to swing without anybody reversing back out to open them. We look at all of that from the road at the survey, and whatever applies goes in the written quote, so it never turns up as a problem in week one.
Who you are dealing with
Drives and entrances along the forest edge
We are 6.8 miles from Thorney Hill, on Wolverton Road in Boscombe. We lay drives across Thorney Hill, Bransgore, Burley, Sopley, Hinton and the rest of the BH23 forest edge. A drive here can touch two authorities: the National Park for planning, and Hampshire County Council for anything crossing the verge to the road.
If you are unsure whether we cover your road, send us the postcode. The firm is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales, and you can look up company number 15471719. Thomas Hannen, whose business it is, measures up and prices each drive himself. Checkatrade lists a 10 out of 10 from one verified customer. We visit free of charge and the itemised written quote is free. Before you book a visit in Thorney Hill, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.
Planning at a glance
Do you need planning permission in Thorney Hill?
Most repairs in Thorney Hill 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 Thorney Hill |
|---|---|
| Who decides | New Forest National Park Authority is the planning authority for Thorney Hill. New Forest National Park Authority's heritage pages set out what it controls. |
| Conservation area | None covers Thorney Hill, so a like-for-like repair is ordinary maintenance. |
| Listed buildings | Yes, there are listed buildings in and around Thorney Hill. 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 Thorney Hill
Does being inside the National Park change what we can do?
Being inside the National Park changes who decides and how closely a drive gets looked at. Thorney Hill sits under the New Forest National Park authority rather than a district council, permitted development rights are tighter inside the park, and a new hard surface at the front is worth checking rather than assuming. The park will also have a view on appearance, since plots here are visible from the open ground.
Resurfacing what already exists, like for like, is the simple case.
What surface takes a horsebox without rutting?
One with the depth underneath it, not a particular finish on top. A horsebox puts several times the axle load of a car through two narrow lines, so the sub-base has to be deeper and compacted in layers, and on the naturally wet ground at Thorney Hill it needs a geotextile as well so the stone does not vanish into the subsoil. Above that, bound gravel or a heavy duty block both work. Thin tarmac does not.
The drive is long and we reverse out. Any options?
Build a turning head instead of widening the whole run. Four in ten homes at Thorney Hill are detached and the drives are long, so the useful change is a hard bay two thirds of the way down where a car can swing round, with the rest kept to single width. It moves far less ground than widening the lot, and it is the part that actually stops you backing out onto the road.
Can a long drive be built in sections over time?
It can, and on a run that length it often makes sense. Drainage has to be settled first, because a section built to the wrong fall comes up again when the next one goes in beside it. Thomas sets the whole entrance out on one visit and prices it in stages, so on the longer Thorney Hill approaches the turning area and the apron at the house can be done now and the middle later.
How can I tell if it is the surface or the base?
Push a screwdriver into an open joint or a crack and see how far it travels. If it stops on something hard within a hand's depth, there is a base under there and the surface may be all that needs doing. If it keeps going into soft ground, the surface is holding itself up and no amount of resurfacing will help. On the wet ground around Thorney Hill it is generally the second.
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Get a written price for your Thorney Hill drive or patio
Send the postcode and tell us what the drive is doing. We come out, open the ground to see what is under it, and put the price in writing with the days it will take.