Driveways in Dickens Heath
Dickens Heath is the new village Solihull built from scratch, with construction starting in 1997 and the first residents in by 1998. That makes the original driveways and parking courts more than twenty-five years old. The developer block paving is at the end of its run, and it is failing across the village at roughly the same time.
About Dickens Heath
The masterplan put a high street, a green and a mix of houses, mews and apartments on a canal-edged site, so the parking is not one standard layout. Some houses have a short private drive, others share a court behind the terrace. The original block paving went down fast on housebuilder programmes, and the faults now are consistent: sunken wheel tracks, blocks rocking where the edge restraint has gone, and joints that lost their sand years ago. Where the base is still sound we lift, re-lay and re-sand it, and where it has moved there is no fix short of taking the whole thing back to the sub-base. Shared courts have to be treated as one surface, so the work gets agreed with the management company or the neighbours before we book a date.
Weather and drainage
Water is what ages these drives. Once the jointing sand has washed out, rain gets underneath, frost lifts the blocks through the winter and the wheel tracks drop a little further every year. Rebuilding to a proper permeable spec, with clean angular stone in the joints and a base that actually drains, ends that cycle instead of resetting it for another couple of years.
Dickens Heath postcodes we cover
B90.
Planning and dropped kerbs in Dickens Heath
Permission is only needed for a new front driveway over five square metres that uses a hard, non-permeable surface and drains onto the road. Choose a permeable finish, or send the water to a border, and no permission is needed at any size. A new vehicle crossing over the footpath is a separate application to Solihull council, and it takes weeks rather than days, so start it early. More detail is in our guide to driveway planning permission.
What we lay in Dickens Heath
- Fixed written quotes Priced by the square metre, in writing, before anyone lifts a spade.
- No cold calling, ever We do not knock doors and we never turn up with spare tarmac.
- Insured local installers Public liability cover on every job. Ask and we send the certificate.
Get a price in Dickens Heath
Free site visit, measured up, fixed price in writing.