Farm track - advice needed

[rhys1]

Hi, i live on a fairly remote farm, which is about 3/4 of a mile from the main road. We have to use a fairly rough farm track to get to the main road and it is constantly muddy, full of potholes etc when it rains. We have been thinking about "fixing" the road for a while, but are unsure how to go about it, what is the cheapest option etc. We occasionally lay sub base and compact it in parts but eventually when it rains the sub base carries down the track and potholes/ridges appear. We have laid concrete in situ on part of the track years ago, but it was impractical really to travel to and from the farm. What would you recommend as the best option to lay on such a distance, and what would be a rough price range for the works?
thanks
rhys

[Pablo]

Is there not a grant for concreting farm drives. A friend of mine got quite a substantial amount of his paid for. There's a Scottish fella called Stuarty on this site who's got a farming background maybe he could help.

[Tony McC]

The two cheapest permanent options are concrete or bitmac. Continually topping-up potholes or overlaying with planings is a false economy, especially on a gradient, where you're constantly battling against gravity. Many farmers opt for concrete because they can undertake the work themselves and not have to rely on a laying contractor. If you can lose all the excavated material on-site, and use your own labour, you can put down a 150mm concrete slab for around 12-15 quid per m²

[lutonlagerlout]

by my reckonings thats about 600 m3 of crete which at readymix prices is gonna cost £50 k for the crete alone <gulp> assuming a width of 3m and a depth of 150mm

even buying in ballast and cement will still cost a small fortune, we worked on a farm near soulbury with exactly the same drive length and the guy there did the worst bits a bay at a time to try and spread the cost out,problem is that grain lorries etc will bust it if its not substantial enough
regards LLL