Driveways in South Birmingham

Driveways on Birmingham housing

The Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis in Kings Heath, Moseley, Selly Oak, Harborne and Bournville were built before cars, and a large share of the work we do here is converting a small front garden into a hardstanding: dropping the kerb, taking out the wall or hedge, and laying a permeable surface that keeps the water on the plot. That last point is what keeps it inside permitted development, and on a street where the pavement floods it is also what keeps you on good terms with the neighbours.

Resin bound and permeable block paving both do it; poured concrete and standard tarmac do not.

Access is the constraint here. There is often no way to get a machine to the front of a terrace, so the dig is by hand and the spoil goes out in bags, which we price honestly rather than discover on the day. Birmingham City Council handles both the planning side and the highways side, and a dropped kerb application goes to the council with a fee and a wait, which we manage for you.

In Bournville, the Village Trust has design guidance on frontages, and in the Moseley and Edgbaston conservation areas the loss of a front boundary can be an issue in itself, so we check before quoting.