We intend to widen our drive slightly. Right now we have a lawn, a bit of a drive and a narrow flowerbed that I created on beside one of the hedges. Plan is to ditch the front hedge and make the drive Y-shaped. This will allow us to park both cars AND make the flower beds about ten times the size. I have an eye for a lovely crab apple tree as a backbone and some nice evergreens with bulbs and perennials.
Now all I have to do is start digging behind the sofa cushions for coins!
I object to the idea of paying extra council tax, all that damn monoblock was already here when I moved in. One day I will rip it all up, possibly re-lay the bit I need properly and put a fence across the front (presumably removed to access all the monoblock, although the drop kerb is only 1 car wide). The concrete apron to the garage is deteriorating, not decided whether to use the monoblock there or just lay a new concrete drive just where I need it and try to sell the blocks.
I work on my vehicles on the drive, gravel/permeable materials won't be any good under the jack and axle stands and I would lose too many small parts..... but at least I could arrange the run off to go onto soil rather than into the drains.
I'm a few years away from that though, first I would need to get my camper back together so I can move it.... and then get an MOT and tax on it so I can move it off the drive! Too busy working in the back garden at the moment!
Funny I never thought of drive surfaces in light of flooding potential... when we bought our new ground here we had to have a drive made as there was no sort of access to it, and no place where to put our one car on the road either (tiny road... if you meet someone driving the other way, one has to reverse all the way to the next wide spot)... but we always wanted gravel because it seemed less intrusive to the soil. in fact it was a pain in the backside, because the drive is so steep that our poor little Polo got stuck in the gravel a few times at the beginning and we had to find some gallant young fellows to help us out, but we survive
Funny I never thought of drive surfaces in light of flooding potential... ..
It is a real problem here in the UK, with large areas of suburbia and new estates now under block paving - rain rushes off and the drains can't cope - there are rules now about how the paving is laid to make it less of a problem, but I suspect that very few new installations adhere to them
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
So, Stewart thinks that having the facility to park more than two cars off the street should invoke an increase in tax. Why? What about the hazards parked cars present to children? Or the potential clogging of smaller roads? Or coming home only to find that you can't park outside your own home? It is a fact of life that a substantial number of homes have two or more cars nowadays. It is far safer and secure to park on a driveway or in a garage than to leave them on the road side. Why do you think insurance premiums are lower if parked off road?
I agree that new installations should be laid in a way to aid drainage but to suggest that an increase in tax for drives able to house more than two cars is, quite frankly, ridiculous.
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Some of the rooms aren't very big either
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
The word, Logan and Dove, is teeny!
We intend to widen our drive slightly. Right now we have a lawn, a bit of a drive and a narrow flowerbed that I created on beside one of the hedges. Plan is to ditch the front hedge and make the drive Y-shaped. This will allow us to park both cars AND make the flower beds about ten times the size. I have an eye for a lovely crab apple tree as a backbone and some nice evergreens with bulbs and perennials.
Now all I have to do is start digging behind the sofa cushions for coins!
I object to the idea of paying extra council tax, all that damn monoblock was already here when I moved in. One day I will rip it all up, possibly re-lay the bit I need properly and put a fence across the front (presumably removed to access all the monoblock, although the drop kerb is only 1 car wide). The concrete apron to the garage is deteriorating, not decided whether to use the monoblock there or just lay a new concrete drive just where I need it and try to sell the blocks.
I work on my vehicles on the drive, gravel/permeable materials won't be any good under the jack and axle stands and I would lose too many small parts..... but at least I could arrange the run off to go onto soil rather than into the drains.
I'm a few years away from that though, first I would need to get my camper back together so I can move it.... and then get an MOT and tax on it so I can move it off the drive! Too busy working in the back garden at the moment!
Funny I never thought of drive surfaces in light of flooding potential... when we bought our new ground here we had to have a drive made as there was no sort of access to it, and no place where to put our one car on the road either (tiny road... if you meet someone driving the other way, one has to reverse all the way to the next wide spot)... but we always wanted gravel because it seemed less intrusive to the soil. in fact it was a pain in the backside, because the drive is so steep that our poor little Polo got stuck in the gravel a few times at the beginning and we had to find some gallant young fellows to help us out, but we survive
I wonder if the same councils might be encouraged to give a discount to those removing non permeable surfaces from their front gardens?
Doubt it.
It is a real problem here in the UK, with large areas of suburbia and new estates now under block paving - rain rushes off and the drains can't cope - there are rules now about how the paving is laid to make it less of a problem, but I suspect that very few new installations adhere to them
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Of course, it is fairly obvious when you think of it! Fot once a regulation that makes sense.
So, Stewart thinks that having the facility to park more than two cars off the street should invoke an increase in tax. Why? What about the hazards parked cars present to children? Or the potential clogging of smaller roads? Or coming home only to find that you can't park outside your own home? It is a fact of life that a substantial number of homes have two or more cars nowadays. It is far safer and secure to park on a driveway or in a garage than to leave them on the road side. Why do you think insurance premiums are lower if parked off road?
I agree that new installations should be laid in a way to aid drainage but to suggest that an increase in tax for drives able to house more than two cars is, quite frankly, ridiculous.