Driveways

A driveway is the largest piece of hard landscaping most houses have, and the one that takes the most punishment. It carries the weight of a car every day, it takes the water off the front of the house, and it is the first thing anyone sees. Most of what decides whether it lasts is buried out of sight before the surface goes anywhere near it.

BMS Building lays driveways across Watford, St Albans, Hemel Hempstead and Harrow, and works more widely across Hertfordshire and the northwest London border, including Borehamwood, Rickmansworth and Bushey.

Choosing a surface

There is no single best driveway. There is the one that suits your ground, your budget, how you use the drive and how much upkeep you want to do.

Block paving

Individual blocks laid on a compacted base and locked together by their own pattern and a restrained edge. It handles turning and braking well, it comes in permeable versions that answer the drainage rules, and a damaged block can be lifted and swapped rather than patched. It is the most repairable driveway surface there is.

Resin driveways

Aggregate mixed with resin and trowelled out to a seamless finish. It is smooth, it has no joints for weeds to find, and resin bound over a permeable build up drains through the surface. It depends completely on the base underneath it being right, which is why the base is most of the job.

Paving, patios and paths

The same trade, different work. Patios, paths, steps and edging in natural stone, porcelain and concrete flags, often done at the same time as a drive so the levels and the drainage are planned as one thing rather than two.

What goes in below the surface

The surface is the part you see and the smallest part of the work. Under it, in order:

1. The dig out. The existing surface and enough of the ground below it comes away to make room for the build up. How deep depends on what is underneath and what the drive has to carry.
2. The sub-base. Crushed stone, laid and compacted in layers. This is the structural layer. It spreads the weight of a car across the ground rather than letting it press into one spot, and a sub-base that was not compacted properly is the single most common reason a driveway dips, rocks or sinks in wheel tracks.
3. Edge restraint. Blocks and paving push outwards under load. A haunched edge, bedded in concrete, is what stops the whole surface spreading and opening up joints along the sides.
4. Falls and drainage. The finished surface is laid to run water somewhere deliberate, away from the house.
5. The surface itself.

Depths are decided by what is actually found on site, not by a number picked in advance. Soft or wet ground needs more build up than firm ground does. That is one of the things the site visit is for.

Drainage and planning permission

This is the rule people are most often told wrong, so here it is plainly.

In England, laying a new or replacement hard surface of more than five square metres in a front garden needs planning permission, unless one of two things is true: the surface itself is permeable, or the water runs off onto a lawn or border where it can soak away naturally.

That is why permeable block paving and resin bound over a permeable build up both come up so often. They are not upsells. They are two of the ways a front driveway stays within permitted development. A sealed surface draining straight onto the pavement or into a road drain is the case that needs permission.

Replacing an old drive counts the same as laying a new one. A conservation area or a listed building does not change the rule on its own. An Article 4 direction or a condition on the house's planning permission can take the permitted development right away, and taking down a front wall or railings to make room for a drive can need its own consent. Check your own address with your local council before work starts rather than after.

On every front driveway, Perry Niven goes through the drainage and the council rules with you.