Re: Planning permission

Get a Victa

Re: Planning permission

i'm not sure grasscrete is for me - blocks are permeable so it is just concrete or tarmac that are the potential problems with run off.

i think it is good to keep a hedge and as much of the front garden boundary as possible green otherwise the street starts looking bleak and miserable.

Re: Planning permission

Not quite sure what you mean permeable = allowing liquids or gases to pass through it. Surely that is what is needed?

Re: Planning permission

sorry i wasn't very clear,

i mean Concrete Block Permeable Paving

as per:- http://www.pavingexpert.com/permeable04.htm

i'm somebody that occasionally crawls around under vehicles

grasscrete wouldn't be good for jacking or generally working on motors.

Re: Planning permission

Actually they look fine for jacking up cars Though I wouldn't try on the ones I proposed but they sure as hell stop this:

Re: Planning permission

...or this

Re: Planning permission

Big flashy tractors are too heavy for field drains which lie too near the surface to cope with the weight so water is coming down from hills and off the fields to add to the flooding problem. The wee town I live in has suffered a lot from flash floods due to that and when folk get rid of their gardens in favour of hard landscaping, allowances are not made for drainage. We learn the hard way! Many driveways just have two parallel rows of slabs and gravel in between. Of course that would only work if they didn't use polythene under them.

Re: Planning permission

I may have mentioned this before but in the main road just off mine, all houses have a very small front garden, due to the size of the houses. And not long ago, when walking down to our Co-op, I looked in to each garden to see whether they'd retained the grass, and would say 95% hadn't!! Concrete concrete concrete.

And I've not scratched the surface of checking other roads, but I bet it's the same scenario. They obviously prefer it as easy maintenance but don't care (or are ignorant) of the consequences.

Re: Planning permission

I think there is a mind set with some people thinking what they do is not going to make any difference. I used to work with a woman who told us about getting new double glazing and how the wood would be from the Brazilian rain forest and would therefore would last longer. I pointed out that the rain forests were disappearing for that reason, tribes and animals were losing their habitats and her reply was "but everyone getting them". This was an intelligent woman yet could turn a blind eye when she felt it reasonable that it improved the life of her windows.

Perhaps additional council tax to include all the hard landscaping would help provide extra to remedy they damage getting done. It could also be insistent that some alternative form of drainage is installed.

Re: Planning permission

When we moved to the house we're now in we slung nearly all the original 'garden' into a skip - it was mostly enormous concrete slabs. We now have a drive, a circular lawn, a border with perennials, a small gravel garden and ......... plenty of room for water run off!