New Driveway in Liphook? Mind the Water Before You Mind the Pattern

You've put up with the gravel that migrates onto the pavement and the oil patch by the garage for years, and now you're ready for a proper driveway. Block paving looks the part. But before anybody picks a colour, there's a rule worth knowing about, and it trips up more people than you'd think. Under the government's front garden guidance, paving over more than five square metres of front garden has to be permeable, or drain to a lawn or border, or you need planning permission.

That isn't new, but it keeps catching homeowners out. A typical Liphook drive on Headley Road or off the Longmoor Road is easily 30 square metres or more, so you're well past the limit. The simplest answer is permeable block paving with open-jointed 2 to 6mm gaps filled with clean grit, over a free-draining sub-base of 4/20 clean stone. Another is to lay a conventional block but fall it to a soakaway or a planted strip rather than the road.

Which brings us to the dig. The old government guidance talks about a 150mm sub-base, but on clay-ish ground around Bordon and Petersfield we'd rather see 250mm to 350mm of compacted Type 3 or clean stone under a vehicle drive, with a 40mm bedding layer of sharp sand or grit on top. Skimp there and the first lorry delivery leaves wheel ruts. And edge restraint matters more than most people think; a concrete haunching behind the kerbs, not just a dab of mortar, stops the blocks creeping.

Patios are different, of course, and for those we're happy to lay sandstone slabs on a full mortar bed, 600 by 600 or mixed-size Indian sandstone, with a fall of around 1 in 80 away from the house and the DPC at least 150mm clear above finished level.

Peter Beasley Landscaping have been building driveways and patios around Liphook, Alton and Farnham since 1987. If you're weighing up a drive and want the drainage sorted before the first block goes down, have a look at http://peterbeasley.co.uk/ and ask for a quote.

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