Drainage
Driveway drainage on the Wirral
Where the water goes is a design decision made before a surface is chosen, and on some plots it decides which surface you can have.
- Dig depth and sub base stated in writing
- Edge restraint haunched, not just laid
- Drainage designed, not left to the border
Driveway drainage
The rule, and the reason behind it
Since 2008 the rules on front gardens changed. Laying a new impermeable surface over roughly five square metres, where the water does not drain to a permeable area within your own property, can require planning permission. The reason is simple: when a whole street paves its front gardens in something water cannot pass through, all of that water goes into the drains at once, and that is how roads flood.
In practice it is easy to satisfy and it is almost always easier to design in than to retrofit. A permeable surface such as resin bound on the right base, permeable block paving, or gravel, handles it directly. Alternatively an impermeable surface can drain to a soakaway, a border or a channel within your boundary. Either way it is the council's answer for your particular property, so the right move is to check your case rather than take anybody's word including ours.
The design question underneath the rule is where the water actually goes on your plot. A drive that falls towards the house needs intercepting before the threshold. A flat plot needs a fall built in and somewhere to take it. A soakaway needs ground that will genuinely accept water, which on low lying parts of the Wirral it may not, and that has to be tested rather than assumed. Getting this wrong puts water where you did not have it before, which is a much worse outcome than a puddle. Often asked about alongside groundworks and preparation, driveway prices and block paving driveways.
Get the drainage designedEither satisfies the rule. Which suits you depends on the ground and the surface you want.
On low lying ground it can fill and stay full. Tested, not assumed.
A fall towards the threshold is intercepted before it gets there, or the fall is changed.
Done across Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, and everywhere else on the peninsula. Cleaning, sealing and re-sanding an existing drive is a different trade: that goes to Wirral Exterior Cleaning.
Driveway drainage on the Wirral
What this job looks like
These are placeholders, not photographs of our work. There are no job photographs on this site yet and nothing here is borrowed from anybody else's. Real ones go in as jobs are finished and customers are happy for us to use them.
Why people use us
Designed before the surface is chosen
On some plots the drainage decides which surfaces are available, which is why it comes first rather than last.
- Where the water goes stated in the quote
- Soakaway viability tested rather than assumed
- Threshold protection where the ground falls to the house
- The planning position flagged so you can check your own case
Frequently asked questions
Driveway drainage: the questions people ask
The ones that come up most. If yours is not here, ring and ask.
Do I need planning permission for a new driveway?
Possibly, if it is a front garden, the surface is impermeable, it is over about five square metres and the water does not drain to a permeable area within your property. A permeable surface or a soakaway normally avoids it. It is the council's answer for your property, and worth asking before anything is ordered.
What is a soakaway and will one work here?
A pit filled with stone or crates that holds water and lets it soak into the ground. It only works where the ground accepts water, and on low lying parts of the peninsula the water table can be high enough that it fills and stays full. It should be tested rather than assumed.
My drive floods in heavy rain. Can that be fixed?
Usually, and the fix depends on why. Too little fall, a fall to the wrong place, a blocked existing drain or a surface that was always going to shed more water than the border could take. It is diagnosed before it is quoted.
Can I connect my driveway to the foul drain?
No. Surface water must not go into a foul sewer, and doing it is both against the rules and a good way to cause problems downstream. The water goes to a soakaway, a surface water drain or a permeable area.
Done across Birkenhead, Wallasey, Bebington, and everywhere else on the peninsula. Cleaning, sealing and re-sanding an existing drive is a different trade: that goes to Wirral Exterior Cleaning.
Tell us which way the ground falls
Towards the house or away from it, and whether it ever stands after rain, is the start of the design.
About Wirral Driveways
How the work is actually organised
Wirral Driveways takes the job as main contractor and puts the labour and the plant on it. One person quotes it, one person is answerable for it, and you are not chasing a groundworker and a paviour separately to find out who is coming.
What you get is a written scope with the build up stated, a date, and somebody whose problem it is if the date moves.
We install. We do not clean
This matters enough to say on its own page. Cleaning, sealing and re-sanding an existing driveway is a genuine trade and it is not this one. It needs different equipment, different materials and a different way of pricing.
So we do not offer it, we do not quote for it, and when you ask we will point you at wirralexteriorcleaning.com, which does it properly. Saying yes to work we are not set up for would be the easy answer and the wrong one.
What else we will tell you we are not
Structural retaining walls above a modest height, anything involving a highway other than a straightforward vehicle crossing, and tree surgery on a protected tree are all other people's work. All three come up on driveway jobs and all three are worth bringing the right person in for.
No photographs of our work, and why the site says so
There are no job photographs on this site. The slots are placeholders and they are labelled as placeholders. Nothing here is a stock picture presented as a job and nothing is borrowed from another company.
Real ones go in as jobs are finished and customers are happy for us to use them. The same goes for anything that looks like a customer quote: there is a section built and ready, switched off, until there are real ones with permission attached.
Get in touch
Tell us roughly how big the area is, what is on it now and which way it falls. A photograph from the pavement and one from the house answers most of it before anybody rings you back.
- Phone0151 453 8836
- Emailcontact@wirraldriveways.com
- WhatsAppSend us a photo of the job
- Based inWirral, Merseyside
- HoursMon to Fri 8 to 6, Sat 8 to 2, closed Sunday