Sunset from Hill House, Mount Helen. February 2024

Saturday, January 17, 2015

Driveway



We've finally had the kerb dropped so we can get the car into the drive
 I really don't know why we haven't done this before.

I know why we didn't do it when we first moved in.  We looked into it and at that stage you needed Planning Permission, plus you needed a council appointed kerber to do the job and it was going to cost ridiculous amounts of money to have it done.  So we didn't bother.

We knew that the planning laws had changed, and from time to time discussed whether we would investigate having the kerb dropped, but never did anything about it.  Mostly we parked the car in Ward Street, which is the next block down.  You can't park outside our place, because there are double yellow lines.  Every now and then we would put the car on the drive, but the front wheels didn't like going over the kerb, and the bottom of the car scraped along the edge when we tried to get back out.  It was never very successful.

Then Phil, two doors up, had his drive done, and Steve and Debby next door had theirs re-tarmaced. While the chap was there we asked about having our drive done.  Seemed we didn't need planning permission any more, and he had the necessary permissions to drop the kerb.

Then we went to Australia and more or less forgot all about it;.  Except for those rare occasions when we parked on the drive and the car didn't like it.

So I rang the bloke and asked him to give us a quote.  We had EXACTLY that amount of money in the saving account. And he came yesterday and did it.



I really can't think why we didn't do this before!!!

The Builder is going to widen the gateway, up to the street sign. The car only just fits between the existing walls.  And then we're going to tidy the drive up, get rid of the rubble, the boxes and the overgrown garden bed, shift the soil and fill the gap with concrete to provide a hard surface - and then the bloke is coming back to tarmac the drive and it will all look beautiful

This is how it looks at the moment:



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