Linking a driveway to the road

[ToughButterCup]

Our officially adopted roadway is not very well maintained. Have a look at this.

Here is an image of the edge of the road next to our drive.

 

 

How do I make a 'good' joint between the drive and the road? 

 

Here's what's planned

 

I'm not really sure where our curtilage starts - or stops.

 

The plan is to make some sort of concrete nosing to secure the sets which we want to put in. The main aim there is to prevent them from 'moving' towards the road.

 

I'd like to put the sets in to show the edge of a cartilage. But finding out where that is will probably be a long process and I just want to get on with it. So maybe we just put the sets 500 mm back from the edge of the road and then just fill in the gap with the MOT1 and compact that. 

 

Messy. 

 

 

 

 

[saveasteading]

I agree the use of a hard delineation as tarnac can be tamped against it.

I would once have suggested precast concrete channels but they crack under heavy wheels. For light vehicles it could be ok.

So I think your use of setts is wise because they can be reset if necessary. A strong bed is essential.

 

Or, if it also aids drainage, use a channel drain system.

[ToughButterCup]

Might tarmac be a partial answer? I say partial because it will inevitably be broken up by some of the really heavy tractors that go past and and sometimes tankers.

 

And where on earth do I get tarmac from? Where is one of those gangs of dodgy looking blokes offering to resurface your driveway when you need one?

[saveasteading]

Take a trailer to the tarmac plant for a small quantity. Have it delivered for larger. 

But laying lots needs speed and skill.

 

Phone the plant and they'll have advice.

 

I found that they charge more for cash payments, because they can and there is plenty of that business. 

[ProDave]

If DIY laying tarmac, you can use a wacker to compact it but you must keep it wet with a hose.

[saveasteading]

When we laid tarmac, our groundworker always brought along one particular mate and put him in charge. He barrowed and shovelled along with the rest but clearly had some particular skill....I think estimating how much it would compact.

I mean...don't assume it is easy.

[saveasteading]

Thinking further.  It is common for a LA to stipulate a row of cobbles between a private drive and the highway.

[ToughButterCup]

Do you know what, I had that thought. I wondered whether there was some kind of guidance from the local planning authority. I'll have a look through their documentation and see if our suspicion is correct.

[Redoctober]

This may or may not be of any use but here goes. The image below shows our "bellmouth" adjoining the highway, albeit a single track country lane. Our planning permission was granted with the "bellmouth" being a condition of approval. 

 

To my surprise there was no "bonding" running along the joint but that said, 5 years on, we have had no issues such as break up etc due to weather or tractor traffic. 

 

The bellmouth was installed by LA approved contractors - basically a licence to charge us a heavy premium for the pleasure!

 

Anyway, as an aside, a gang of contractors have recently been installing the ducting alongside our lane ahead of Openreach installing their fibre cabling for a better more reliable internet service. In doing so thay had to "cross" the lane. Basically, another gang turned up in an open back pick up truck a few days later and were able to fill it with sufficent tarmac, bash it down with a springloaded compactor type thing and also run a line of hot wet overbnding along the joins. Whole job - start to finish leas than 30 minutes! 

 

So, what I am saying I suppose is that there may well be "gangs" out there who can operate on a smaller scale to accomodate your needs?

 

[JohnMo]

Ours is similar to the above photo.  We were told the first x number of meters is to be completed to roads spec, as vehicles/lorry's are allowed to part there while offloading etc. Anything else inwards from there, you can almost do what you want, but has to be SuDs compliant.  Also because our access is sloped down towards the road, we had to have a linear drain and suitably sized soakaway to prevent water our property entering the road.

 

The council will have a standard set of details they will expect you to follow so the entry complies with whatever roads rules there are.  Single track roads are treated very different from dual roads.  As I believe a single track road has in effect to form a passing place for other road users

Edited August 28, 2023 by JohnMo
more details

[ProDave]

We too had to have the first 3 metres finished in tarmac, so I did it all in that right up to our level concrete parking area.

 

If you live on a single track road, passing traffic WILL treat it as another passing place unless you park on it yourself to stop that.  Not much you can do to stop that.

[Kelvin]

Pretty much our only condition stipulated how the belmouth should be formed. We got a document that showed all the different types with outs highlighted. I asked how to detail the link between me and the road and was told it had to be done to road spec which wasn’t terribly helpful. Subsequently I’ve got a hold of the guys that do all the roads round here and they are happy to complete this for me for not a huge amount of money. 

[Blooda]

Here's ours

 

In a 30mph zone, but metalled road is just under 4.5m and the boundary between council and ours is the row of edgings. 

 

We had several choices, 

 

Just do anything our selves.  But as the main Fibre cable for the village runs under that verge, we did decide to ring the council.  When she came for a site inspection,  but she did not know what to do, as there was a grass verge there, so she told us to apply [£240 i think] for a dropped Kerb, which we did.  We got a "design" and spec, off them.  At that stage we could have

     cracked on our selves and just done it. 

     Got a permit [£350] found someone permitted to work on highways.

      Paid the council £1200 to do it.

 

The council will inspect DIY works, and have been known to core drill to assess make up.

We paid the council, not a brilliant job, and not to there own spec [they do not answer emails], but if it fails it is not down to us.

 

 

 

 

[ToughButterCup]

Hmmm, interesting, thanks.

 

Quote

 ... and the boundary between council and ours is the row of edgings...

 

Our boundary is the where the MoT1 (see above) meets the road

 

What makes things more interesting is 

Quote

.... But as the main Fibre cable for the village runs under that verge ...

 in our case the fiber will run under our  bellmouth (car-park), so I need to be quite careful to get the design correct. 

 

Your job looks really neat - may I ask - what are those three indentations just inside your driveway, @Blooda ? I suspect they might be either lights or perhaps for security posts ... you can see why I am interested because of the design below ( the shaded area) with green lines in it .....

 

 

and as someone above says, people will use (and already do) use our forecourt as a parking area ......

 

Maybe i should consider fixing something like this  security post ....

What do you think?

 

[Blooda]

These are ours:-

 

Ramco 100 Anti-Ram Telescopic Post (bisonproducts.co.uk)

 

Also by a company [but a different one] called Byson. 

I got a bit of deal for buying 6, as I collected them, they are made a couple from miles from our old house, and he made them keyed alike.

 

Bollards are not VAT Allowable, so need to factor in that cost.

 

If someone wanted to get through them they could, but it is a hinderance to any would be tea leaf so they move on the next house, So worth it. 

 

The 6 did cost more than my 2014 insignia is worth   

 

 

[ProDave]

1 hour ago, ToughButterCup said:

in our case the fiber will run under our  bellmouth (car-park), so I need to be quite careful to get the design correct. 

If the fibre is not there yet, don't do your final surfacing until it IS there and working.

 

20 years ago a new house up the road from us had just moved in and were somewhat peeved when SSE came along to dig a trench down the road and across their entrance for a new supply to 2 new houses down the road (one of those being our first self build) 

[Kelvin]

If you put the post where people are likely drive into to say turnaround or let others past it will get driven into. We had them at our previous place. We had a shared Y shaped drive. We wanted vehicles to use the long branch of the y not the short branch as it passed a house at the bottom of the drive. This was a condition of the planning. The posts got driven into twice. In the end we put on a large very visible planter. 

[ToughButterCup]

6 hours ago, Kelvin said:

.... In the end we put on a large very visible planter. 

 

Debbie's idea. ,🥴 she's always correct, right, perfect, spot on .

 

Jaffa cakes all round @Pocster

[joe90]

Whilst on this subject, I am installing electric gates on a concrete plinth but have about 500mm to the edge of the tarmac road (very bad condition) and due to undulations think tarmac would be best but can’t find someone to do such a small job (fir a reasonable price). So what do people think of cold lay tarmac (DIY) ?

[ToughButterCup]

1 minute ago, joe90 said:

....

what do people think of cold lay tarmac (DIY) ?

 

What's the difference - and the point of two types of tarmac?

[joe90]

1 minute ago, ToughButterCup said:

 

What's the difference - and the point of two types of tarmac?

From my limited knowledge, cold tarmac comes in a bag and can be laid cold, no need to have it delivered hot which obviously costs much more.

[ProDave]

Cold tarmac is what the council wagon carries and 2 blokes go around shovelling it into pot holes and give it a quick run over with a wacker plate.

 

Within about 2 weeks, nothing is left of it in the pot hole.

[saveasteading]

14 minutes ago, ToughButterCup said:

the point of two types of tarmac?

The cold lay stuff has very small stones, and the bitumen has a high solvent content which evaporates to let it harden. It is not very strong, especially against scrubbing or spinning wheels.

The hot stuff has graded stone, like type 1, and is inherently stronger. The bitumen binder hardens in cooling, and glues the stones together.

Cold lay for amateur (and council sometimes) patching of small areas. Hot for proper job. 

Edited August 30, 2023 by saveasteading

[ToughButterCup]

You couldn't make it up : two blokes from Lancashire Roads are outside right now : two shovels, a small 7.5 tonner.

 

Just been out to talk to them - they made the point that the hole needs to be as clean as possible before any 'blacktop'  gets put in. They're using a blower to clean the hole(s) out.

 

Edited August 30, 2023 by ToughButterCup

[Big Jimbo]

8 minutes ago, ProDave said:

Cold tarmac is what the council wagon carries and 2 blokes go around shovelling it into pot holes and give it a quick run over with a wacker plate.

 

Within about 2 weeks, nothing is left of it in the pot hole.

They obviously do a decent job near @ProDave Won't last a week down south. Total waste of time and money.