Driveways in Westbourne

Block car parks and forecourts. Many of the flats in BH4 were built from the 1960s to the early 2000s with a tarmac or concrete apron in front and parking bays behind.

After a few decades the same faults turn up: cracking along the wheel tracks, rutting where cars turn in, ponding at the lowest point and a gully that no longer takes water. If the base is sound, the surface can be planed and relaid. If it rocks or has sunk, it comes out, the formation is cut back, a geotextile membrane goes down and the sub-base is rebuilt in compacted layers to the right depth. A channel drain across the entrance and a proper outfall stop the puddle coming back.

Front gardens of converted villas. Where a big old Westbourne house has been split into flats, the front garden has often been paved over bit by bit, by different owners at different times. We take it back to one level, one fall and one surface, with haunched kerbs and an edge restraint so block paving cannot creep under turning wheels, and a planted border left along the boundary to take some of the rain.

Resin over sound concrete. Where an old Westbourne concrete drive is still flat and solid, resin bound gravel laid over the top is a two day job with little dig and little muck away. If the concrete is cracked and moving underneath, we will tell you resin will only crack with it.

Tarmac, block paving or resin. Tarmac is the practical choice for a large shared car park in Westbourne. Block paving can be lifted and relaid in patches, which helps where service covers and drains need getting at. Resin bound is permeable and suits a smaller frontage.

Repairs. A sunken bay by a bin store, blocks lifted by tree roots near the chines, joints washed out and needing a re-sand with kiln dried sand, oil staining on concrete, or a gully that has silted up. Small jobs are worth doing before they become the whole car park.

One person to ring from the first visit to the last. The quote is itemised, not a figure on the back of a card: excavation, muck away, the sub base, edgings, the surface itself and the drainage on separate lines, so you can compare it properly against anyone else's.

Nothing is left open or unusable overnight. The site is swept at the end of each day rather than the end of the job, and what comes out leaves with us. If something turns up once we start that nobody could have seen, you get a photograph and a price before we carry on.

A house can pave its front garden without planning if the surface is permeable or the water drains onto its own ground; more than five square metres of sealed surface draining to the road needs permission, as the Planning Portal guidance on paving your front garden explains. A new or wider dropped kerb is a separate application to BCP Council as highway authority, so we start it as soon as you give the go ahead. Taking down a front wall or railings inside the Westbourne conservation area is worth checking first; the council keeps the list.

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, because somebody falls or water ends up against the house.

The first visit is about making it safe and getting the water going somewhere, and we quote the permanent work once the ground can be opened up. On a block, a gully that has stopped taking water or a bay that has dropped by the entrance needs coning off and reporting to the managing agent the same day. Scheduled work runs Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm. For anything urgent, ring rather than use the form, and if we cannot pick up we ring you back as soon as we can.

Call now: 07435 839745

Nearby places we also cover for driveways, with straight-line distances from Westbourne, and the other trades we offer in Westbourne itself.

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