Turning part of front garden into parking advice?

[BarrelOfOtters]

We’ve got a v wide front garden with a long driveway where you can fit two cars one in front of the other. It’s a pain so mine always ends up on the road.

We could take part of the front garden to have two cars next to each other. There’d have to be a retaining wall.

There’s no need for a dropped kerb as no pavement.

I was thinking we could then shorten driveway and reclaim that for garden....

No idea of costs though....

We did similar and had a back door in the utility . We've never used it! We always use the bifolds

Oops wrong thread!

@Baxdream no problem I’m Lying here pondering as failing to have a lie in. So posting lots of house musings.

I turned the front of my house into a parking spot, for 2 cars and it cost about 1k. with some negotiation. It was done quite cheaply though... Sounds like you might want something a little bit swankier so I'd personally say put aside 5k

It will all depend on whether you have to lay concrete to the area you want to park on, and remove it from the area you want to return to garden.

Perhaps instead of digging up the old drive you could make a garden with pots and tubs.

I good idea, we did this at our previous house as it always seemed that the car that needed to get out was blocked in - no matter what sequence they were parked, it was always wrong!
If you want to avoid a large expanse of concrete you might want to look a those plastic (I think) grids that grass can grow through but you can drive over without creating deep ruts in the grass.

Look at a drive covering that allows water to drain through. There are makes of tiles that are porous and it helps prevent flooding. That’s important. No to concrete.

Retaining walls cost a lot of money. They are double skin and will ideally designed by a structural engineer if over 900 mm high. They are holding back a lot of heavy wet soil! They need to do the job safely.

Cost us just under 3k to have a driveway at the front- I had quotes ranging up to 6k

I wouldn’t. Personally I don’t like houses with mainly concrete at the front. Would totally put me of buying as I would want to turn it into a front garden with grass again. Concrete is one of the reasons why homes are flooding more often in bad weather.

We turned out from garden into a driveway and it was about £2.5 k . It's quite a big area though and we had it done in brick . Loads of different ways and looks to do it .

I think we need a diagram 🤣

If you are doing it consider something porous as otherwise you need to think about water.

Definitely porous. We’d have more front garden left than drive. It’s a wide frontage. And I could plant above and to drape over retaining wall. It’s that wall that’s making me pause. It would be about a metre tall at its highest.

I think you might now have to get pp if you add a drive in non porous material. Check with your planning department about what’s permitted and what isn’t. Flooding alleviation and slow water drainage are now a priority for many councils and the Environment Agency.

@Baxdream

We did similar and had a back door in the utility . We've never used it! We always use the bifolds