Driveways in Thornaby

Three towns in one

Thornaby's history explains why its frontages vary so much from street to street.

1. The old village. Thornaby Green, with the small 12th-century church of St Peter ad Vincula on its long green, was the original settlement. The church was restored in 1908 and is listed Grade II*.
2. The industrial town. From the 1820s a pottery, then glassworks, iron works and shipyards grew up on the south bank of the river. The settlement, first known as South Stockton, became the borough of Thornaby-on-Tees in 1892, when its town hall was built on the corner of Mandale Road.
3. The post-war town. RAF Thornaby closed to flying in 1958, and the borough council bought most of the airfield in 1962. Through the 1960s and 1970s it became housing, a new town centre and an industrial estate.

Riverside terraces with no front garden

Many of the Victorian streets near the river were built for people who walked to the works, and their front doors open straight onto the footway. Where that is the case there is nowhere to park off the road at the front, and the council will not grant a crossing. Parking across the pavement is not a legal workaround either.

Some of these terraces back onto lanes wide enough for a car. If the rear yard is deep enough to take a vehicle without blocking the lane, a parking space there can work. Before we quote we check:

• who owns the lane, because some back lanes are adopted highway and others are private or unadopted;
• whether you can turn in, since a narrow lane can make a perfectly good yard impractical;
• which way the gates open: they should swing into the yard, never across the lane.

Lanehouse Road and the early 1900s streets

Lanehouse Road runs for more than a kilometre through the middle of Thornaby and has nearly 500 properties, most built between 1900 and the 1950s. Semis and mid-terraces dominate, and front gardens range from a couple of metres to enough for a car.

The first thing we do is measure from the front of the bay, not the main wall, to the back of the footway. Around 5 metres is usually the minimum for a car to sit without overhanging the pavement. On a main route like this, the council also weighs up visibility for drivers reversing out and for people walking past, so a compact rectangle of block paving or resin, cut neatly around the bay, with the brick piers kept either side, tends to be the design that gets approved and looks right.

The estates on the old airfield and Stainsby Hill

The streets built across the former airfield, and the estates at Stainsby Hill on the eastern side of town, are mostly semis and detached houses with open-plan fronts. Stainsby Hill takes its name from Stainsby, a medieval village that lay between Stainsby and Maltby Becks; its earthworks survive beyond the houses.

Drives here were usually laid in concrete or thin tarmac, and several decades on they are cracked, patched or sunk. Our usual approach:

Many of these streets have a grass verge between the footway and the road, so a crossing covers both and is assessed as one application. A street tree in the verge can push the crossing to one side, which is why we plan the drive around where the crossing can actually go. See driveway repairs for when resurfacing is enough.

Bassleton and the trees

On the western side of town, around Bassleton Lane, mature trees are part of the character, with Bassleton Woods and the Holmes local nature reserve close by. Most of a tree's fine roots sit in the top 600mm of soil, so a standard dig-out can sever them, and rigid surfaces can be lifted by roots over the years. Where a tree is close, we look at reduced-dig options such as gravel in a cellular grid or resin on a porous base, which let water and air reach the roots. Verge trees belong to the council and cannot simply be removed for a crossing.

Mandale Park

The old Mandale estate was demolished and replaced by the new homes of Mandale Park. The name goes back much further: Mandale Beck once ran through farmland and powered a mill before the aerodrome and later housing culverted it. New homes here usually came with a basic drive on a modest sub-base. Dips where the car parks, rocking edge blocks and standing water are the signs it needs rebuilding. Before changing the frontage, check the deeds for covenants and find out who owns any strip between the drive and the footway.

Thornaby Green conservation area

Thornaby Green has been a conservation area since 1971 and is one of eleven in the borough. Before a new front drive, a wider opening or taking down a front wall, check whether an Article 4 Direction covers the property, because it can bring those works under planning control. Six weeks' notice is also needed before most tree work in a conservation area. A single modest opening, gravel edged with setts or clay pavers, and retained planting suit the Green best. Our conservation areas guide covers the process.

Dropped kerbs and drainage

The owner applies to Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council for a crossing; the council builds it or lets a contractor with its Opening Up licence do the work. See dropped kerbs. On drainage, more than 5m² of new impermeable surface at the front that drains to the road needs planning permission, so we use permeable surfaces or fall the drive towards a border. The permeable driveways guide explains the rule.

Common questions