Driveways in Walhampton and Portmore

Long drives to houses set back from the lane. Many of the older houses in Walhampton and Portmore sit back from the lanes behind a hedge, so the drive is long, it carries a delivery lorry a few times a year, and it is the first thing anyone sees.

Built thin it ruts under the wheels and hollows where you turn. Built properly it is a dig down to firm formation, a geotextile membrane so the stone cannot work its way into softer ground, then a graded sub-base laid and compacted in layers to a depth set by what we find in the hole. Self-binding hoggin, resin bound over a solid base, tarmac or permeable block paving all sit happily on that. Loose gravel does too, but only with a real edge restraint holding it, or it walks to the bottom of the slope every winter.

The bit between your gate and the road. A lot of entrances in Walhampton and Portmore open straight onto a wide verge that is not yours to dig, so re-grading it or laying stone across it is a highway question, not a design choice. It matters because the verge is exactly where water off the lane arrives on your land. A channel drain or a cross drain at the entrance, taken somewhere that can legally accept it, saves more of the drive than another hundred millimetres of stone ever will. A trailer, a horsebox or a caravan parked in one spot all winter punches through a drive built only for a car, and it is the jockey wheels and corner steadies that do it, not the tyres. The fix is a deeper build-up under that one bay, a concrete pad or a heavier sub-base, without rebuilding the whole thing.

26.9% of the housing here predates 1919, which means solid walls and often no damp proof course to work to, and a patio laid up against that wall sends rain straight into it. Where there is a damp proof course we finish well below it; where there is not, we build in a fall away from the house and a drainage channel along the wall. Sawn natural stone and porcelain both cope with a shaded, slow drying garden, porcelain on a full primed mortar bed, stone pointed by hand with a proper mortar, never a brushed in compound that fails in the wet. For the garden side, see patios in Walhampton and Portmore. The most exposed elevation faces south west, so it is the edges and the openings that take the driven rain rather than the middle of a surface. Steps down into a garden get built level and consistent, because an odd riser is what people trip on. Smaller jobs are worth doing on their own: a re-sand and re-level of block paving that has dropped by the garage, weed through open joints, a cracked flag at the threshold, ponding in one bay, or green staining on north facing paving. Finding which single thing has failed is what the survey is for.

We will not give a rate per square metre, because what lies under a drive settles the price long before the surface does.

Getting machines in. An older cottage on a tight lane, a house set well back behind a long hedge and a newer plot in a close each need a different route for the digger and the lorry, and every load of spoil goes out the same way.

The ground itself. Parts of the area sit on clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry. That calls for a deeper dig and a thicker sub-base so the surface does not move, which means more spoil to take away.

Where the rain ends up. Permeable block, resin or gravel on a grid lets water soak away on site. A sealed surface needs channels and a soakaway. Either way it has to finish somewhere other than your neighbour's drive or the lane.

Trees. Roots under an old drive have to be worked round, and some trees beside the lanes are protected, so we check before cutting any.

The finish you choose. Gravel, block paving and resin each need a different edge and base.

Ask each quote how deep they intend to dig, what depth of sub-base they allow and where the surface water will go.

We lay drives in Walhampton, Portmore and the SO41 lanes around them, through Boldre and Pilley and on into Lymington. It is 13.7 miles out from our base, and the Park Authority handles planning for all of it.

The company you would contract with is Bournemouth Roofing & Building Ltd, registered in England and Wales; its company number is 15471719. Thomas Hannen owns it, walks the drive with you and prices the work himself. On Checkatrade, a verified customer marked us 10 out of 10. The site visit is free, and so is the itemised quote you receive in writing. Before you book a visit in Walhampton and Portmore, you can read our customers' Google reviews, word for word, on our reviews page.

Most repairs in Walhampton and Portmore 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.