Concrete driveways in Fletcher

Driveways in Fletcher, 2287

Fletcher lies 16 km west-north-west of the Newcastle CBD, between Wallsend and Minmi, strung along Minmi Road past Bishop Tyrrell Anglican College and the village shops. It was grazing land until the 1990s. Then it grew faster than anywhere in the city, the population doubling twice a decade between 1991 and 2006; Sanctuary Estate alone released more than 890 home sites, its last stages sold to a builder at the end of 2016, and the newest streets are only now finishing. Nine houses in ten are separate houses and the median age is 32, so the driveway work is what young families with a project home do: add what the builder left out on the newest lots, and replace the builder’s driveway on the earliest ones, which are now a generation old.

Former paddocks with engineered drains

The estates were built on old grazing land with water sensitive urban design and bushfire measures, which tells you the blocks are engineered rather than natural, with creeks and small water bodies running through and south of the housing on the state map. The larger part of Fletcher appears to sit inside the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District, with streets on the northern edge outside the boundary. For a driveway that changes nothing, since Subsidence Advisory NSW exempts driveways and hard stand spaces under all its guidelines except 4 and 5; for a shed or a garage the lot is checked on the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer first.

What the builder left out

On a new lot the handover driveway is the narrowest the contract allowed, and the first call is to widen it for the second car with a strip dowelled beside it in plain concrete, then the side path, the alfresco and the shed slab in the same pour. On the streets built in the late 1990s the builder’s driveway has done its time, and where it has cracked or dropped it comes out and goes back at the full width in one removal and replacement. Maryland next door, a decade or two older, is further along the same replacement curve.

The crossing on a Fletcher lot

City of Newcastle’s drawing A1300 gives a double residential crossing 2.5 to 4.5 metres wide, square to the kerb and clear of poles, pits and street trees, so a widening that brings the crossing to two-car width is a Section 138 (Type 1) application before the pour, and the formwork is inspected before concrete goes down. The Section 138 guide has the order of events.

Finishes for a project home frontage

The estates are specified in exposed aggregate more than anything else, carried from the driveway to the porch. Coloured concrete suits a charcoal roof without the texture, and plain broom finish does the side path and the shed. Council’s drawing calls for a plain broom finish on the crossing and does not permit sealer there, so an exposed driveway is sealed to the boundary and left plain in front of it.

Fletcher rates per square metre

Supplied and laid: exposed aggregate $130 to $185; coloured $115 to $160; plain concrete $95 to $130; paths $90 to $130; patios and alfresco $100 to $180; shed and garage slabs $110 to $150; the old driveway out first adds about $35. What moves a Fletcher price is how much goes in on the day: a widening on its own carries the crew and the truck, a widening with the path and the alfresco spreads them. Price it in the calculator, read the cost guide, and take the specification and the Section 138 guide to whoever quotes.