This permeable paving.....

[Nigel Walker]

Talk about confusion !!!
I am confused, the public are confused, the planners and BCO's are confused. And I think Tony may be slightly baffled too !
From how I have read it and speaking to my local Planning Officer - PP is only needed if there is un-controlled water going onto the highway.
Ways of controlling this water are - Permeable Paving and Soakaways
If the drive is sloping back to the house ( ie no water going on the highway), I am on the understanding that you can still connect into the surface water drains. At least that is what my local planners have said !!
If the drive is sloping to the road - Install a row of Aco Channels along the bottom of the drive and connect into a soakaway. It also reads that if the soakaway will not work then these channels can be connected directly into the surface water system
With regards to using the Permeable paving. - I have used this method a couple of times and it works very well. But it only works if the ground below soaks up water and there is somewhere for the water to go. The same can be said for a soakaway. These methods are great when conditions allow, but what if you have solid clay or bedrock or service pipes only 100mm below surface !!! Not everthing is so black and white as the goverment would like to think.
As for us contractors - I dont think its as bad as it could have been. Planning permission will only be needed on rare occasions.
The issue that i have and it has been raised before - Cowboys !!! Myself and all those other reputable and conscientious paving contractors will price the extra for installing soakaways and also permeable paving and will do the work how it should be done. What about the cowboys who will always cut corners and also be more cheaper than before.
I asked this question to the planners and answer was - Nothing we can do. There will not be any officers visiting jobs and inspecting. The only time anyone will visit will be if there is a complaint and a Compliance Officer will come out, but by which time the drive is laid and who can tell if a proper soakaway has been installed - if indeed one has !

What, with the sh*t weather, bad clients and now this issue - who would be a paver !!!
Nigel

[lilyholland]

Yes that is my reading of the regs as well. The drive we are looking at has 2 socking great trees by its gateway and my worry is that the roots from these will be near the surface when we want to dig down. Add that to the problem of the run-off water and this is one of those jobs I'm not entirely sure I want!
As you say, with this summer's weather who would be a paver!

[colordrives]

I was wondering today about ways of getting round the costs increases of using a permeable paving system, as a chunk of the cost is the increased price of the pavers is it possible in anyway to convert standard pavers into a permeable system ? maybe using spacers? just an idea...... As it looks like this is all set in stone maybe we should try an come up with some ways of cheapening things a bit

Also does anyone happen to know the average amount of water a square m of permeable paving can handle? could it take more than its own surface area? could 10m's of permeable at the bottom of a 50m drive cope?

Just some ideas

[PatioMan20080915]

Just read this on http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/england/genpub/en/1115316438436.html

"From 1 October 2008 new rules apply for householders wanting to pave over their front gardens.

You will NOT need planning permission if a new driveway uses permeable (or porous) surfacing which allows water to drain through, such as gravel, permeable concrete block paving or porous asphalt, or if the rainwater is directed to a lawn or border to drain naturally.

If the surface to be covered is more than five square metres planning permission will be needed for laying traditional, impermeable driveways that do not control rainwater running off onto roads."

By deduction it seems to me that you ONLY need planning permission when all 4 of the below are true
i) you are paving a drive of more than 5sqm
ii) your drive will have an uncontrolled run off onto a highway
iii) your drive is not permeable / porous
iv) your drive does not have run off to a lawn / border

It seems pretty straight forward to me, but I don't think the planning advice will win any plain english awards!

[colordrives]

From what I have read in a number of situations u can plug into a down pipe without needing planning. Ie when there is a large fall to the house.

The biggest problem will be drives with large falls to the road and nowhere to site a soakaway, then it's either permeable or planning permission.

[simeonronacrete]

A form of permeable paving can be seen here......Ronadeck Resin Bound Surfacing System

[Injured]

I have spoke to Halton council about a drive I have seen to price and it is tarmacced at the moment and falls to the house where there is a gulley. They want it replaced with an aco and block paving. Council say it needs planning permission.
Also does any one know of any permeable training courses in the north west??

[Injured]

Forget the training courses 'The boss' has emailed me with details. A big thanks Tony.

[lutonlagerlout]

looked at your site ,some nice bits there injured

50 tonne of earth dug out in 2 days by hand!! how on earth did you weigh it?
i estimate that's a barrowful every minute of the day, for an 8 hour day
me and my old scud keith dug a set of footings 1 m deep in a day before and filled 2 7 yard skips,dont know how much it weighed but we were knackered
nice tidy jobs though
LLL

[Injured]

well there was 4 grab loads out and a grab takes around 14 ton. There was 2 digging and 2 running with barrows. And yes it was hard work but ground wasnt too bad though apart from by connifers it deepest bit. Dry hard clay.

Thanks

[Tony McC]

By deduction it seems to me that you ONLY need planning permission when all 4 of the below are true
i) you are paving a drive of more than 5sqm
ii) your drive will have an uncontrolled run off onto a highway
iii) your drive is not permeable / porous
iv) your drive does not have run off to a lawn / border

Due to other commitments, not least of which was the bollocks made of the site transfer by our new hosts, I'm late to this ongoing thread, but I just want to pick up on the points raised by patioMan.

It's not necessary for all 4 of the conditions he listed need to be met for a job to require PP. In the FAQ wot I writ I tried to make it clear that PP will be required whenever any paving in excess of 5 square metres in front of the building line of the house discharges water onto a public highway (footpath or carriageway) and/or when surface water is sent directly to a piped drainage network that connects to the sewer system without first passing through a SuDS installation such as a soakaway.

So, even if a driveway partially drains to a garden, the fact that some part of the drive is drained to the highway or the sewers is sufficient to warrant the need for PP. In essence, all SW from the driveway must be dealt with on-site.

[gavinruane]

No-one, other than the twonks at Defra, know exactly what will be required. The proposal issued during the Spring is dire, but is the only clue we have to date as to what we can expect come October.

As reported in other threads and in my blog, the original proposal document, plus my submission can be downloaded from this site, but until Defra publishes its response, none of us know for certain just what will be required.

tony,
do you know of any drainage courses that are being run so that i can get a good grounding and am then able to explain and perhaps come up with answers to this incredible problem.it would be good to explain as much as possible to the clients in different areas what they can have and whether or not PP is needed.
i am totally confused and would really like to be more knowledgeable.
PS i am based in london.

[Dave_L]

I've got hold of a Government paper on this very subject, will read it later.

If I get the time before the weekend, I'll scan it for you to see.

[Tony McC]

Gavinruane - regarding courses specifically dealing with drainage solutions to help ensure driveways will comply with the new laws: I did propose such a course at the committee meeting of the Hard Landscaping Training Group held on October 1st, but while there was general agreement about the need for such a course, the rest of the committee would not sanction its creation and development. To be frank, the way that group has been over the past 12 months, if I said 'black', they'd say 'white' just to be bloody awkward.

However, given that the rump of the HLTG regards the timing and availability of lunch to be more important than providing adequate training for our industry, I'm in discussion with a private company to fund the development and subsidised hosting of such a course for later this year or, more likely, early next year. More news as and when, assuming I get agreement from the money men.

The HLTG, in their bewildered wisdom, have also decided they do not need to have any input to the forthcoming HSE review of the ways in which paving materials are handled. Dismayed with this attitude, I've decided to fund my own attendance at the review meetings in that London to ensure that someone puts the contractor's point of view. It's apparent we can't rely on the official training body to represent our trade when the powers-that-be make decisions that will directly affect how and when we work.


Dave - all of the govt documents are available via the website already. Here's a list of the relevant links....

The actual Legislation

The Explanatory memorandum

The Guidance Document

..and other useful info...

The Pavingexpert.com FAQ

Interpave Guidance

[SFLandscape]

Had a talk by Hanson Formpave on permeable paving at Ruscrete southampton, really nice guy came out and gave us a talk, he was really helpfully and we were able to bring up a lot of issues that they were unware of, sealents, cleaning, mud in the joints, as most of these systems were design for commercial use, give them a ring see if a group of you in your areas could get a talk from them.
As for how much water the system can hold; for every 13 sq mtrs of blocks with the base they surgest, the base should hold 1 cubic mtr of water