Bellmouth / passing place - Construction method

[cbailey2004]

Thank you for such a great site and so much info - we're almost finished our self build (no more caravan) but before we can get our completion cert. we have to hard finish the track for 5m where it meets the road (lots of options there) but we also have to provide to council standards a passing place which has to have a tarmac finish - 5m x 2.5m with 5m splays either end. The exisiting bellmouth created before we bought the site has stood the test of time well - 2 years of delivery trucks and I'd say pretty flat - sorry now the question - what would be the correct construction method and what of what we have already can we use - PS as you can probably imagine we've got to keep the cost down, Allen and I did the concrete so we're no strangers to hard work!

[Big Phil]

If the council are involved, have they mentioned Section 278 Works? Better to ask than have a Clerk of Works catch you out. Generally the council expect the off-slips to be of the same standard as the carriageway, so the council should be able to give you the formation spec.

Thickness of materials depends on traffic loading (Commercial Vehicles per Day - cvd), and then you'll need to be aware of any surface texture and PSV for the surface course materials (is there a speed limit on the main road there?)

You'll probably need to dig down a bit, but due to the lack of line painting on the road you may get away with a thinner construction if it's a quiet lane.

You may be looking at:

150mm - 200mm of GSB1
{100mm - 150mm of 32mm BASE (if necessary)}
60mm - 100mm of 20mm BINDER
30mm - 40mm of 10mm SURFACE (although the picture may even be surface dressed chippings?)

[cbailey2004]

Thank you for your reply
1. They didn’t mention Section 278 – In the planning permission document it say’s to council standards – so I called the council roads department and the “gentleman� there said your contractor will know. The thing is I would like to know what they want so I can get correct quotes and know what I’m on about – to the best of my ability
2. The road is a single track dead end road 3.5m wide and services 2 properties beyond us, saying that it could also be used by farm machinery. Its difficult to work out the ‘cvd’ as I’ve been here 2 years and only met traffic in the region of 5 times!! Maybe a cvy – commercial vehicles per year would be more appropriate but one of those could be a combine harvester.
3. Although there is no speed limit on the road, therefore 60, as it’s single track to avoid the neighbours cat and the other neighbours hens etc most people stick to 30-35 – the road doesn’t have any markings and we’re the first property that the council have picked on to put in a passing place so I can’t ask anyone
4. I have phoned up a few contractors and one said 60/40 so I’m presuming they mean 60cm binder 40cm surface so they seem to be in the ball park

Thank you so much for your info I like to know what’s going on – even if I can’t do it

[Big Phil]

if it's only low speed light traffic then 100mm of asphalt on top of 150mm GSB1 should be ok.

The asphalt is the most expensive material, and Surface Courses are more expensive than Binder Courses, due to higher binder content, so i'd go for 70/30 using a 10mm Surface Course.

[cbailey2004]

Thank you for the insight - at least now I can ask question and understand some reasoning behind things

[Dave_L]

How have you got on with this project?