Driveway Repair near you

The threshold to remember is five square metres, and the date behind it is 1 October 2008, when the General Permitted Development Order was changed so that hard surfacing of more than five square metres of a domestic front garden is permitted development only where the surface is rendered permeable. GOV.UK's guidance on the change sets out the approaches that control and reduce rainfall running into the drains: permeable surfaces, soakaways and rain gardens.

The Planning Portal's version is the one to hold a contractor to. A new or replacement driveway of any size that uses permeable or porous surfacing which allows water to drain through needs no permission; permission will be needed for laying traditional impermeable driveways of more than five square metres that do not provide for the water to run to a permeable area. The rules are for houses, not for flats and maisonettes, and they concern front gardens specifically. So an impermeable drive is still possible above the threshold, provided the run off is genuinely directed to a permeable area rather than to the pavement.

Driving across the pavement is a separate permission with its own timetable. The Planning Portal describes a dropped kerb as a lowered sloping access point in the pavement, states that it is required if you wish to drive over a pavement onto your property, and says it is illegal to do so without one. GOV.UK directs you to your council to apply, and notes that the service is available in England and Wales only. Sort the crossover before the surfacing is booked rather than after.

Scotland reaches a similar destination by a different route. Its permitted development order includes a class covering the provision within the curtilage of a dwellinghouse of a hard surface for any purpose incidental to the enjoyment of that dwellinghouse, or the replacement in whole or in part of such a surface. Where that surface lies between the dwelling and an adjacent road, the condition attached is that it must either use porous materials or direct run off water to a permeable or porous area or surface. The class is not available in conservation areas or within the curtilage of a listed building at all.

The practical difference is worth noting: the Scottish condition is expressed as porous materials or directed run off, without the five square metre threshold that appears in the England guidance, and the conservation area exclusion is absolute rather than a matter of an article four direction. A homeowner in a Scottish conservation area replacing a front drive is looking at an application, not a permitted development check.

Northern Ireland runs a separate order again, whose minor operations part deals with enclosures and the formation of a means of access rather than with front garden surfacing in the same terms. Rather than assume that the England guidance carries across, ask the local council's planning service what applies to your address before the old surface comes up.

The dominant cause is water that has nowhere to go. A drive that was laid to fall towards a gully which no longer works, a soakaway that has silted up, a permeable build up clogged with fines and moss, or a garden that has been raised so the drive now drains towards the house all produce the same result, and the surface gets the blame. Standing water also does its own damage, softening the base through a long wet winter and working into joints and cracks.

Loads are the second cause. Domestic drives are frequently built for a car and then asked to take a delivery lorry, a skip, a builder's grab lorry or a caravan parked on one spot for months. Edges suffer first, because a tarmac or block paved edge without restraint has nothing to lean on, and once the edge goes the ruts follow it inwards.

The third is everything that was already in the ground. Old trenches for water, gas and electricity backfilled loosely, tree roots, a buried garden that was never compacted, and the softer strip where a previous kerb or wall was grubbed out all settle at their own pace. Damage that follows a straight line across a drive is usually tracing a trench, and damage that appears beside a mature tree is usually tracing the tree.

A sound repair begins with two questions rather than with a quotation: what is under the surface, and where does the water go. Expect the contractor to look at the falls, at the gullies, channels or soakaway, at the thresholds and at the edges, and to say what the repair assumes about the sub base. Where a permeable surface is involved, expect them to be clear about whether they are maintaining permeability or replacing it, because that is a planning question as well as a drainage one.

Removing the old surface is a real part of the job. GOV.UK states that a business must register as a waste carrier if it transports waste, or as a dealer or broker if it buys, sells, disposes of or arranges for someone else to handle waste, and there is a public register of waste carriers, brokers and dealers you can search to confirm a firm is registered. Ask who is taking the broken tarmac, blocks or concrete away and under whose registration.

Cutting is where the health risk sits. HSE states that over 500 construction workers are believed to die from exposure to silica dust every year, and that regularly breathing construction dust can cause lung cancer, asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and silicosis, all of which cause permanent disability and early death. Cutting concrete, stone and paving is exactly the activity that produces it, and the controls HSE points to are water suppression, on tool extraction and respiratory protective equipment under the assess, control and review approach of COSHH. A contractor dry cutting blocks in a front garden with no water and no extraction is telling you something about the rest of their standards.

Driveway resurfacing is one of the classic doorstep trades, usually pitched as material left over from a job nearby and a price that is only good today. The law gives you time that the pitch is designed to deny you. Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013, a consumer may cancel a distance or off premises contract at any time in the cancellation period without giving any reason and without incurring any liability except as those regulations provide, and for a service contract the cancellation period ends at the end of 14 days after the day on which the contract is entered into.

The regulations go further where the trader keeps quiet about that right. If the required information about the right to cancel is not provided, the cancellation period ends at the end of 12 months after the day on which it would otherwise have ended, and if the trader supplies the information late but within that 12 months, the period ends 14 days after the consumer receives it. A trader who never mentions cancellation has therefore handed you a much longer window rather than removed one.

None of that helps if the work is already done badly, so the ordinary precautions still matter: get a written quotation naming the firm and its address, the area to be repaired, what is being taken up, the sub base and edge work, the surfacing specification, where the water will discharge and what the guarantee covers. Be wary of pressure to start immediately, of cash in advance, and of any suggestion that a front garden of more than five square metres can be surfaced impermeably without anyone thinking about drainage.