With drives, probably more than any other thing in gardens, the most important thing is it actually functions as the drive. No mater how nice it may look if it does work as a drive it is a waste of money. As ever there has to be some compromises, you may what a turning circle in your drive but they need an awful lot of space. First you need to decide how many vehicles you are going to what to park on the drive and do you need to be able to pull onto the drive, turn around and then drive back out. You also need to consider the order the vehicles will be needed, ideally you are not going to want to be constantly moving vehicles around just to get one particular one out. Last but not least you need to consider access to garages and house doors and how much of your garden you what to make into the drive.

Now look at what space you’ve got. An average car needs a space of 2.4 metres by 4.8 metres to park on and this doesn’t include space for manoeuvring it. Make a sketch and some vehicle sized pieces of card and try moving them about on the sketch, allowing for how they are going to swing out when turning. At this point you are going to have to make some compromises so consider what is important. Once you feel comfortable with the layout of your drive mark it out in the garden as you plant to have it and actually try it out. It is far easier to change now than later.

You are almost ready to construct your drive but before you start checking the cost of materials it is important to consider if planning permission is needed. The pressure for off road parking has lead to more and more gardens being paved over and while this does get cars off the sides of roads it means the rain that would soak into the front gardens now runs off. In response to this the government decided to bring in planning controls to cover non-porous paving in front gardens. Further details can be found on the government’s planning portal here. Planning rules are complex and special rules can apply in many situations so a 5 minute phone call to you local planning office at this point can save a great deal of trouble later. What ever you do don’t try to emulate the Ostrich!

. Planning rules are complex and special rules can apply in many situations so a 5 minute phone call to you local planning office at this point can save a great deal of trouble later. What ever you do don’t try to emulate the Ostrich!