Driveways and front gardens
The front of the house sets the tone for everything behind it — a designed entrance, a properly built drive, and a garden face to the street.
We design and build driveways, parking courts and front gardens as one piece of design — the surface, the levels, the planting and the walls — so the approach to your house looks deliberate rather than poured.
Since 2000 we have built entrances across Hertfordshire and Essex, from Victorian villa frontages in Hertford to new-build plots where the drive is the garden.
Resin, block, gravel and stone
Resin-bound surfaces give a smooth, permeable finish in a wide tonal range; block paving suits period houses and takes patterns well; gravel is the most permeable and the most forgiving of the clay soils around Bishop’s Stortford, which move seasonally. Natural stone and setts, used with restraint, age best of all.
Every drive we build sits on the same compacted, geotextile-separated sub-base as our terraces — the part that decides whether the surface stays true.
SuDS, run-off and the rules on front gardens
Since 2008, front gardens over five square metres generally need permeable surfacing or drainage to a soakaway to be paved without planning permission. We design to those rules by default — permeable construction, rain gardens and soakaways built in — and where the exception applies we handle the paperwork. Your council’s guidance is worth a read too: for example East Herts’ planning pages.
Dropped kerbs are a separate highway approval; we prepare the drawings and manage the application with the county council so the drive and the kerb meet properly.
Walls, gates and front planting
A front garden is still a garden. Low walls and piers in brick or stone, gates hung properly on posts that will not lean, and planting that gives the house a soft face to the street — hedges, clipped forms, and beds that earn their keep in the small space. Around Epping and other Green Belt edges, we are used to designing with tree preservation orders in place.
Which driveway surface lasts longest?
Built properly, all of them: the sub-base decides. Porous resin and block on well-compacted bases routinely last twenty years plus; we detail edges and falls so the surface never carries more than it should.
Do I need planning permission for a new driveway?
Not usually, provided the surface is permeable or water is drained within the property, and the access itself is lawful. Non-permeable paving over five square metres of front garden does need permission. We check your specific address at design stage.
Can you organise the dropped kerb?
Yes — we prepare the application to the county council, including the drawings, and build the crossing to their specification once approved.
Is gravel practical with clay soil?
Yes, with the right build-up: a geotextile membrane over a compacted base keeps the gravel from sinking into the clay. It is one of the best-performing drives on Hertfordshire clay.
Can a driveway and a front garden share the space?
Almost always — a parking bay, a path with a purpose and a planted bed or two is a designed entrance; a full-coverage drive is a car park. The difference is worth having.
Start your project
Arrange a design visit and we will walk the garden with you, listen to how you want to live in it, and set out what a design and build would involve.