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Raphael Park
Lake, 1904 bandstand and lakeside cafe at the western edge of Gidea Park, a short walk from Main Road. The flat path round the water is the local lunchtime circuit.
Learn more about Raphael Park on Google MapsDriveways In Gidea Park
Thinking about paving a Gidea Park front garden? Read this first.
Driveway installation in the Exhibition Estate, Heath Drive, Balgores Lane, Squirrels Heath and the roads off Main Road
Gidea Park is the one place we cover where the usual advice about driveways does not hold. Most of the area between Main Road and Eastern Avenue is a conservation area, and since 2016 an Article 4 direction has meant that a front or side hard surface on the scheduled streets needs planning permission whether or not it is permeable. Havering has enforced it. We are based in Upminster, a few miles away through Hornchurch, and we have laid drives on both sides of that line: permeable resin and gravel on the unscheduled streets, and consented schemes with retained planting inside it. The first thing we do with a Gidea Park enquiry is check the address against the direction. Then we talk about materials.
No obligation
Free Driveway Quote In Gidea Park
We reply the same working day, usually within the hour.
About Gidea Park
An exhibition suburb that still polices its front gardens
Gidea Park started as a competition. In 1910 and 1911 Gidea Park Ltd built 159 cottages and houses on the Gidea Hall and Balgores estates, each by a different architect, and opened them to the public as a town-planning exhibition. Cottages went up on Risebridge Road and Meadway, larger houses on Parkway and Reed Pond Walk, and six of them are now Grade II listed. A second show in 1934 and 1935 added 35 mostly flat-roofed houses along Heath Drive, Brook Road and Eastern Avenue, including number 64 Heath Drive by Tecton. Around and after those, the rest of the suburb filled in with 1920s and 1930s detached and semi-detached houses on Balgores Lane, Crossways, Squirrels Heath Avenue and the roads off Main Road. The common thread is the frontage. Hedges, lawns and trees were part of the design, and the roads were never meant to be lined with parked cars.
Havering designated the conservation area in 1970 and extended it to take in the station in 1989. On 31 December 2015 the council made an Article 4 direction, confirmed on 24 June 2016, removing permitted development for hard surfaces at the front and sides of houses on a schedule of streets that includes Heath Drive, Parkway, Balgores Lane, Balgores Crescent, Crossways, Gidea Avenue, Brook Road, Repton Avenue, Squirrels Heath Avenue and Tudor Avenue. It is not a dead letter. At 49 Heath Drive the council issued an enforcement notice in July 2022 over a new front and side hard surface; the owner appealed and the inspector dismissed it in September 2023, giving three months to take the paving out. The ground is the easier part. You are on the rise north of Romford where gravel gives way to London Clay, so we spec the sub-base after a test hole rather than assume.
Local
Upminster Based
Hornchurch, Upminster and across Havering
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Surface Types
Resin to gravel, one crew for all of it
Free
Site Visits & Quotes
Written, itemised and fixed
Written
Guarantee
Handed over on paper at the final walk-round
Services
Every surface we lay, available in Gidea Park
From £80/m²
Resin Bound Driveways
Smooth, porous resin and stone over a properly built base. The surface most Emerson Park and Upminster enquiries ask about first.
Learn more about Resin Bound Driveways
From £75/m²
Block Paving Driveways
Clay or concrete pavers in herringbone, stretcher or basketweave, machine-cut to the edges and held in a concrete haunch.
Learn more about Block Paving Driveways
From £55/m²
Tarmac Driveways
Two-course hot-rolled tarmac with a proper binder underneath, framed in block or kerb. The best value on a long drive.
Learn more about Tarmac Driveways
From £45/m²
Gravel Driveways
Stabilised gravel on a honeycomb grid so it stays put, drains freely and suits the bigger plots around Emerson Park and Cranham.
Learn more about Gravel Driveways
From £90/m²
Patios & Paving
Porcelain, sandstone and limestone patios on a full mortar bed with falls, drainage, steps and walls designed in from the start.
Learn more about Patios & Paving
From £250
Driveway Repairs
Sunken block relaid, tarmac patched or resurfaced, edges rebuilt and drainage sorted when a full replacement is not needed.
Learn more about Driveway Repairs Why us in Gidea Park
What a Gidea Park drive needs that a Romford one does not
- We check your address against the Gidea Park Article 4 schedule before quoting, so you are never asked to pay for a drive that Havering can order you to dig up.
- On scheduled streets we draw up a scheme that keeps the hedge line and a planted strip, which is what the conservation area appraisal asks to see.
- Resin bound and bonded gravel suit the Arts and Crafts fronts on Parkway and Meadway far better than a slab of grey block, and both are permeable.
- North of Main Road the ground turns to London Clay, so we dig a test hole and size the sub-base from what we find rather than a standard 150 mm.
- We know the difference between a 1911 cottage, a 1930s flat-roofed house and an ordinary interwar semi in Squirrels Heath, and we price each one differently.
"Roughly half the Gidea Park enquiries we take are for addresses on the Article 4 schedule, and most of those homeowners did not know it until we told them."
Based on enquiries and jobs handled by Hornchurch & Upminster Driveways.
The guarantee
What our guarantee actually covers on a Gidea Park driveway
Most guarantees in this trade cover the surface, because the surface is the easy bit. Ours is written around the structure underneath, which is where a driveway on Havering's London clay either holds or does not. We put the excavation depth, the compacted MOT Type 1 thickness, the concrete haunch behind every edge and the drainage route on the quote, and we guarantee that build. If the surface sinks, spreads or ponds because any of that was not done right, we come back and fix it at our cost.
- Sub-base depth and compaction written on the quote, not left to the day
- Every edge course set on concrete and haunched, so nothing creeps
- Settlement, rutting or lifting caused by our groundwork put right free
- Manufacturer cover on resin, block and porcelain on top of ours
In
Writing, before we start
The guarantee terms go on the quote, not on a leaflet after the job
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Overlays on a bad base
We will not lay a new surface over a base that has already failed, however cheap it would make the quote
How it works
Seven steps to a driveway in Gidea Park that stays flat
Steps three, four and five are the ones nobody photographs and the ones that decide whether the drive is still level in fifteen years.
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Free site visit
We come out, measure, and look at what is under the existing surface. On the clay that sits beneath most of Gidea Park that is where the decisions get made, not on the phone.
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Itemised written quote
Dig depth, sub-base thickness, edge detail, drainage and the surface, each with its own line and a fixed total. The figure on the quote is the figure on the invoice.
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Dig out and sub-base
Whatever is there now is broken out and taken away in full. We excavate to the depth the ground needs, lay a geotextile on soft clay and compact MOT Type 1 in two layers with a plate or roller.
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Edge restraints
Kerbs, block soldier courses or aluminium trims are bedded on concrete and haunched behind before anything else is laid, so the finished surface has something to push against.
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Drainage and falls
Linear channels, gullies and soakaways go in now, with the falls set so rain leaves the surface and stays inside your boundary as the permitted development rules require.
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Laying the driveway
Screeded sand and machine-cut block, hot-rolled tarmac, hand-trowelled resin or compacted gravel in its grid, laid by the same crew that built the base.
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Final walk-round
We walk the job with you, sand in or seal as the surface needs, take every scrap of waste away and hand over the written guarantee before the van leaves.
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Not sure which surface suits the house? The cost guide compares all six side by side, and the site visit is free either way.
Out and about
What to do in Gidea Park
Resin needs a day before you walk on it and three before you park on it, so here are three good reasons to be out of the house.
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Romford Golf Club
Golf course opposite Heath Drive, on the open ground that gives the northern side of the conservation area its edge. Worth a round if you are waiting for resin to cure.
Learn more about Romford Golf Club on Google Maps03
Lodge Farm Park
Gidea Park's second public park, next door to Raphael Park and with open grass rather than a lake. Quieter, and the better choice if you have a dog and a spare half hour.
Learn more about Lodge Farm Park on Google Maps Where we work
Covering every part of Gidea Park
We are on Corbets Tey Road in Upminster, so Gidea Park is a short drive for a site visit. Visits are free and usually within a few days of your call.
Reviews
What customers around Gidea Park say
We would rather show you a driveway than a star rating.
Customer reviews are being collected and will appear here as they come in. In the meantime, when we come out to quote in Gidea Park, ask to see photos of recent jobs on houses like yours - and ask the other firms quoting the same question. A finished drive two streets away tells you more than a testimonial ever will.
Pricing in Gidea Park
A guide price before anyone comes out
Gidea Park prices carry two extras that other towns do not. On scheduled streets there is a planning application, which we prepare, and the design usually keeps part of the front as planting, so the paved area is smaller than the plot suggests. The wider fronts on Parkway and Heath Drive also mean more edging and more stone, and clay under the northern streets adds depth to the dig. Guide rates are unchanged: gravel £45-70 per square metre, tarmac £55-80, block paving £75-115, resin bound £80-120, patios £90-150, each including excavation, sub-base, edging and the surface.
What moves the price up or down →| Surface | Guide price |
|---|---|
| Resin Bound Driveways | £80 to £120 per m² |
| Block Paving Driveways | £75 to £115 per m² |
| Tarmac Driveways | £55 to £80 per m² |
| Gravel Driveways | £45 to £70 per m² |
| Patios & Paving | £90 to £150 per m² |
| Driveway Repairs | £250 to £2,500 per job |
FAQ
Driveway questions from Gidea Park
Do I need planning permission for a driveway in Gidea Park?
On most of the conservation area, yes, even if the surface is permeable. Across England the 2008 rule lets you pave a front garden of any size without permission as long as the surface drains through or to a border, and Havering Council applies that rule in the rest of the borough. But in December 2015 Havering made an Article 4 direction for Gidea Park, confirmed in June 2016, that removes that permission for hard surfaces at the front and sides of houses on the scheduled streets: Heath Drive, Parkway, Balgores Lane, Crossways, Brook Road, Repton Avenue, Squirrels Heath Avenue, Tudor Avenue and others. If you are on one of those, you apply first. We check the schedule for you and prepare the drawings.
What happened at 49 Heath Drive, and could it happen to me?
In July 2022 Havering served an enforcement notice on 49 Heath Drive for a hard surface laid across the front and side garden without permission. The owner appealed. On 12 September 2023 a planning inspector dismissed the appeal and upheld the notice, with three months to remove all the hard surfacing. The inspector accepted that plenty of Heath Drive fronts are already paved but said the conservation area appraisal treats lost gardens as harm, and the Article 4 direction was clear. So yes, it could. That is why we will not lay a drive on a scheduled street without consent in place.
Who handles the dropped kerb for a Gidea Park drive?
Havering Council. You apply through its dropped kerb page, pay a £261 fee that is not returned if the application fails, and the council quotes for the construction after a site inspection. The crossover must be built by the council or one of its approved contractors; a private firm cannot legally do it. Inside the Article 4 area, a new means of access onto an unclassified road is also one of the things the direction removes from permitted development, and if your house fronts one of Havering's listed classified roads the crossover needs planning permission in its own right. In practice the kerb usually goes into the same application as the drive.
Is the ground in Gidea Park clay or gravel?
Both, depending on how far up the slope you are. Romford town centre sits on a gravel terrace at about 50 feet, and the land north of it, through Gidea Park and on towards Havering-atte-Bower, rises onto London Clay at around 150 feet. Clay drains slowly and moves with the seasons, which is why an old concrete drive on clay cracks along the same lines year after year. We dig a test hole at the first visit. On clay we go deeper, lay a geotextile and build the sub-base from open-graded stone so the drive holds water below the surface instead of pushing it onto the road.
Service area
Also covering the towns around Gidea Park
A Gidea Park driveway done the way Havering will accept
Send us your address and we will tell you the same day whether you are on the Article 4 schedule and what that means for the design. Free visit, written quote, planning drawings where they are needed.