Say goodbye to the driveway as we know it - ..new regulations will affect you!

[Tony McC]

If you are at all involved in the patio/driveway end of the paving trade, please ensure you read the latest entry in the pavingexpert blog. There are some VERY serious government-driven changes in the pipeline that will have a direct impact on the future of your business.

[jonnyaardvark]

do they know ive just spent a small fortune putting in a 400m2 PIC display area at woodford garden centre

jonnyaardvark

[lutonlagerlout]

are they going to make new motorways etc porous?
thought not
*!?% them
its the old do as i say, not as i do, scenario.
LLL

[Pablo]

Paving manufacturers must be flapping like canaries at the thought of such a possible downturn in business.

[jonnyaardvark]

does anyone have any idea on a timetable of these changes ?


jonnyaardvark

[surreyhillslandscapes.com]

Tony mentioned the Charcon Sustainable drainage systems literature a while ago and i had one sent so I could have a look and it makes interesting reading (all 100 pages of it), I worked on a porous paving car park in Newquay a few years ago but it's the only experience I've had with it, anyone tell me roughly how much more a Suds installation would cost compared to a normal driveway? Also, Are there any courses running that cover Suds installation ?

[dig dug dan]

its just another way the pikeys will be cheaper. they won't bother to do it, and get all the work.

[MRA]

Sustainable, permeable paving is the future; at least for flood risk areas and anything linked with commercial or local authority sites, so why not embrace the concept because if you are going to want to maintain a successful business, installation of permeable paving within domestic situtations will be implemented in the near future; as is the potential for planning applications to be applied to driveways if an existing drive is to be replaced with a different product or an extension (i.e. cutting paving into a lawned area) to a driveway is required by a client. If the drive needs planning permission, it will go hand in hand that a local authority will stipulate the use of permeable paving.

Permeable paving is also laid a little differently to regular CBP, whether on a free draining concept or a tanked recyled system, so it will also follow that a council will only want a contractor that has been proven to be competent in the installation of PP. There is a company that trains approved contractors in PP, so check it out.

Also, permeable paving is not suitable in alot of geographical areas, as the required water drainage test holes may prove, so regular paving will still be sold in vast quantites. The PP will also appeal to those clients that hold environmental impact higher on their agenda than cost.

[Rich H]

As I've said several times before, it's all total bollocks. Please don't take that personally, but it is. Of course I'll move my business with the times because that's what being in business means. I can't pretend to accept that it's necessary or even desirable. As LLL says, highways and motorways won't be PP so the tiny percentage of land covered by residential driveways will make absolutely feck all difference. Zip. Nada. Nothing. Zero. I'm perfectly prepared to eat my words in the future, but I won't have to.

[Tony McC]

I'm still waiting for convincing proof that DEFRA has thought this through properly. I know they've spoken to one of the trade bodies, but that particular trade body has a particular interest in promoting commercial-scale permeable block paving, and has little understanding of the smaller "residential" paving contractor and the market in which they operate. There's no surer way of buggering up a good idea than to get effing politicians involved, and this proposal, as it currently stands, is a recipe for disaster.

I've been given a chunk of money to develop and run a training course for permeable paving installation. In the face of considerable opposition from some in the industry, and from some within the training group who really ought to know better, the course will run TWICE this spring, with no more than 8 trainees per session, and both sessions hosted in southern England. That's a total of 16 southern-based trained installation operatives, yet the eejits in DEFRA tell us that, come the autumn, they expect the industry to be installing permeable paving as a rule, rather than as the exception.

How well thought out is that? What about northern England? Scotland? Wales? NI? The response from those that run the training group is that, if contractors require training, they should be prepared to travel.

In your bleeding dreams, maybe!

The industry just isn't ready. We do not have the skilled operatives we need to make permeable block paving as popular as it genuinely needs to be. Instead, we'll have ever more cowboys blagging unfamiliar homeowners into believing that the crap they've just laid *is* permeable paving, and it's only when the damned thing floods (long after the cheque has been cashed) that the poor unsuspecting customer will realise they've been ripped off.

If permeable paving is to be a government-driven priority, then we need proper funding to run proper training courses throughout the nations, and not just pay lip service with privately-funded courses in one select part of one country. Interpave (for it is they) deserve credit and our support for putting their hand into their pocket and coming up with the dosh for these courses. We can't expect them to fund ALL the training that is necessary. We need others to do the same: what about the cash-rich utility companies, the training councils, DEFRA itself?

And we need support from those in the trade. We need contractors to recognise that this is the future of our trade and they need to "up-skill" (as the jargon is) to make sure their businesses are ready, willing and able to make the most of the changes that are a-coming.

[James.Q]

in the marshalls 08 collection it states that the pereable block pavinng system :must not be installed if gas or electric services run through the paved area: is it just me getting confused . most new builds i have done thats where the services are laid ? ???

[Rich H]

Not just new builds!

[Tony McC]

There are ways and means of installing Concrete Block Permeable Paving (CBPP) when services are present. The problem is that each solution is site-specific, so it's simpler for a manufacturer to say "don't bother" than to offer an on-site advice service, obviously. This is just one of the myriad reasons why effective training is essential for CBPP.

In many cases, services need to be ducted when passing through CBPP sub-layers, and that ducting is often a job for the utility co, not the contractor. So, it's fairly understandable that manufacturers are usually only prepared to offer very basic advice in these matters.

If you were laying 5,000 square metres and not just 50, you can bet they'd have a solution!

[lutonlagerlout]

i would say when digging a drive out ,about 50% of the time there is 1 or more services in the sub base layer or thereabouts
obviously this creates problems for permeable paving (as the gas and eleccy people want a kings ransom and 25 years notice to come out and move anything
also i wonder how it fares long term? when it has all silted up what happens then?
time will tell
LLL

[Tony McC]

The design criteria allows for silting-up. I have some data I'll be using in the training course showing that, even at 90-odd % clogging, the water still goes through the pavement as though it wasn't there.

The actual ability of the paving to pass water from surface to sub-layer is phenomenal. The real limiting factor is the capacity of that critical sub-layer. If the rate of infiltration excess that of the exfiltration, then the pavement (as a structure) surcharges until exfiltration > infiltration once again.

Clogging-up really is a minor issue.