Upminster, RM14 - covering Hornchurch, Romford and the whole of Havering
Elm Park is three stops down the District line from Upminster and about ten minutes from our yard on Corbets Tey Road, so it is one of the areas we cover most. Nearly every house here dates from the Costain estate of the mid 1930s, which means the front gardens are a similar size and shape and most of them have been paved at least once. What makes Elm Park different from the rest of Hornchurch is water. Havering lists it as one of fifteen Critical Drainage Areas in the borough, with 574 properties at risk of surface water flooding, and that shapes how we build here: the fall, the edging and what sits under the surface matter as much as the finish on top.
We reply the same working day, usually within the hour.
Before 1933 this was three farms, Wyebridge, Elm and Uphavering, until Richard Costain and Sons bought the lot and announced 7,000 houses on 600 acres, sold privately with Halifax Building Society mortgages and marketed as 'Elm Park Garden City'. Only 500 homes were up when the estate and its station were launched in May 1935; another 2,100 followed by 1939, filled largely by people working at Ford in Dagenham. In return for permission Hornchurch council got wider roads, a bridge over the railway and the land that became Harrow Lodge Park. It also accepted a higher density than earlier estates, which is why the semis on Elm Park Avenue, St Nicholas Avenue, Coronation Drive and Maylands Avenue sit closer together, with shorter frontages, than the ones a mile north in Hornchurch. Council housing added another 1,146 homes by 1964.
That short frontage is the first thing we measure. A 1930s Elm Park semi usually has room for one car square-on, or two if the bay window allows an angled layout, and the surface has to carry rainwater away from the house in a short distance. Havering's 2025 flood strategy names Elm Park as a Critical Drainage Area and records that surface water, not the river, has been the borough's most common cause of flooding in recent years. The storm of 12 July 2021 dropped more than a month's rain in under an hour. So the national rule from October 2008, that more than five square metres of impermeable surface needs planning permission unless it drains to a permeable area, is not a formality here. Permeable resin, open-jointed block paving or a channel drain feeding a soakaway is what keeps the application unnecessary and the hallway dry.
Local
Upminster Based
Hornchurch, Upminster and across Havering
6
Surface Types
Resin to gravel, one crew for all of it
Free
Site Visits & Quotes
Written, itemised and fixed
Written
Guarantee
Handed over on paper at the final walk-round
From £80/m²
Smooth, porous resin and stone over a properly built base. The surface most Emerson Park and Upminster enquiries ask about first.
Learn more about Resin Bound Driveways
From £75/m²
Clay or concrete pavers in herringbone, stretcher or basketweave, machine-cut to the edges and held in a concrete haunch.
Learn more about Block Paving Driveways
From £55/m²
Two-course hot-rolled tarmac with a proper binder underneath, framed in block or kerb. The best value on a long drive.
Learn more about Tarmac Driveways
From £45/m²
Stabilised gravel on a honeycomb grid so it stays put, drains freely and suits the bigger plots around Emerson Park and Cranham.
Learn more about Gravel Driveways
From £90/m²
Porcelain, sandstone and limestone patios on a full mortar bed with falls, drainage, steps and walls designed in from the start.
Learn more about Patios & Paving
From £250
Sunken block relaid, tarmac patched or resurfaced, edges rebuilt and drainage sorted when a full replacement is not needed.
Learn more about Driveway Repairs
"Something like one Elm Park front in three that we price up has water pooling against the house because the old concrete was laid falling the wrong way."
Based on enquiries and jobs handled by Hornchurch & Upminster Driveways.
Most guarantees in this trade cover the surface, because the surface is the easy bit. Ours is written around the structure underneath, which is where a driveway on Havering's London clay either holds or does not. We put the excavation depth, the compacted MOT Type 1 thickness, the concrete haunch behind every edge and the drainage route on the quote, and we guarantee that build. If the surface sinks, spreads or ponds because any of that was not done right, we come back and fix it at our cost.
In
Writing, before we start
The guarantee terms go on the quote, not on a leaflet after the job
0
Overlays on a bad base
We will not lay a new surface over a base that has already failed, however cheap it would make the quote
Steps three, four and five are the ones nobody photographs and the ones that decide whether the drive is still level in fifteen years.
We come out, measure, and look at what is under the existing surface. On the clay that sits beneath most of Elm Park that is where the decisions get made, not on the phone.
Dig depth, sub-base thickness, edge detail, drainage and the surface, each with its own line and a fixed total. The figure on the quote is the figure on the invoice.
Whatever is there now is broken out and taken away in full. We excavate to the depth the ground needs, lay a geotextile on soft clay and compact MOT Type 1 in two layers with a plate or roller.
Kerbs, block soldier courses or aluminium trims are bedded on concrete and haunched behind before anything else is laid, so the finished surface has something to push against.
Linear channels, gullies and soakaways go in now, with the falls set so rain leaves the surface and stays inside your boundary as the permitted development rules require.
Screeded sand and machine-cut block, hot-rolled tarmac, hand-trowelled resin or compacted gravel in its grid, laid by the same crew that built the base.
We walk the job with you, sand in or seal as the surface needs, take every scrap of waste away and hand over the written guarantee before the van leaves.
Not sure which surface suits the house? The cost guide compares all six side by side, and the site visit is free either way.
Resin needs a day before you walk on it and three before you park on it, so here are three good reasons to be out of the house.
01
Havering's largest urban park at 130 acres, laid out from 1936 on land given during the Elm Park build. Pedal boats on the lake, two playgrounds, tennis courts and a parkour area.
Learn more about Harrow Lodge Park on Google Maps02
The old RAF Hornchurch airfield, now a country park with gun emplacements and pillboxes still in the grass, plus Essex Wildlife Trust's Ingrebourne Valley visitor centre and cafe.
Learn more about Hornchurch Country Park on Google Maps03
Just over the Dagenham border, a country park of meadows and lakes with paths into The Chase nature reserve, and flat, easy walking while the resin cures.
Learn more about Eastbrookend Country Park on Google MapsWe are on Corbets Tey Road in Upminster, so Elm Park is a short drive for a site visit. Visits are free and usually within a few days of your call.
We would rather show you a driveway than a star rating.
Customer reviews are being collected and will appear here as they come in. In the meantime, when we come out to quote in Elm Park, ask to see photos of recent jobs on houses like yours - and ask the other firms quoting the same question. A finished drive two streets away tells you more than a testimonial ever will.
Elm Park plots are compact, which keeps the area down but adds a cost most people miss: drainage. On a Critical Drainage Area street we will usually build in a channel drain or a soakaway, and on a 1930s plot the old concrete has to be broken out and carted off through a narrow side gap. Guide prices, with excavation, sub-base, edging and surface included: resin bound £80-120 per square metre, block paving £75-115, tarmac £55-80, gravel £45-70, patios £90-150. Repairs start at £250.
What moves the price up or down →| Surface | Guide price |
|---|---|
| Resin Bound Driveways | £80 to £120 per m² |
| Block Paving Driveways | £75 to £115 per m² |
| Tarmac Driveways | £55 to £80 per m² |
| Gravel Driveways | £45 to £70 per m² |
| Patios & Paving | £90 to £150 per m² |
| Driveway Repairs | £250 to £2,500 per job |
Usually not. Elm Park is in the London Borough of Havering, and since 1 October 2008 the national rule has been that a new or replacement front drive of any size is permitted development if the surface is permeable or the rain drains to a lawn or border. Lay more than five square metres of sealed surface that runs to the road and you need an application to Havering Council. Because Elm Park is a Critical Drainage Area we build permeable as standard, so the question rarely comes up. The rule does not apply to flats or maisonettes, which need a full application.
Havering Council handles it. You apply online, pay a non-refundable £261 application fee, and the council quotes the construction cost after inspecting the site. Only the council or one of its approved contractors is allowed to build the crossover. An unauthorised one will be removed at your expense. If your house fronts a road on Havering's classified list, which around here includes Elm Park Avenue, Abbs Cross Lane and South End Road, you also need planning permission before the kerb application goes in.
Yes. Havering's 2025 flood strategy puts Elm Park among its fifteen Critical Drainage Areas, with 574 properties at risk of surface water flooding in a one-in-100-year storm, and the borough has had serious surface water events in June 2016 and July 2021. We treat the front garden as part of the drainage system. That means a permeable surface over an open-graded sub-base, a fall away from the house, and where the ground is slow a channel drain to a soakaway sized for the plot. We will not lay a sealed surface that sends its water onto an Elm Park footpath.
It is the most common job we do here. The Costain semis share a side access and often an original concrete path, and the boundary is usually where the old surface has broken up. We cut a clean line, set a discreet aluminium or block edge at the boundary, and agree the level with your neighbour so neither side ends up with a step. Resin needs a day before you walk on it and three before you park, so we plan the pour around the neighbours' cars too.
Call 01708 209015 or send the form and we will come out from Corbets Tey Road, measure the frontage, check the fall and give you a written price with the drainage already in it.