Concrete driveways in Cameron Park

Driveways in Cameron Park, 2285

Cameron Park is the estate end of Lake Macquarie, 16 km west of the Newcastle CBD along Northlakes Drive and George Booth Drive, with Cameron Park Plaza in the middle and the motorway close by. The suburb on the ground is a late 1990s release that is still adding stages today. That gives the driveway work two halves. On the newest streets it is the first pour, because the builder’s contract left a single strip or nothing past the garage door. On the earliest streets, a generation on, it is the widening or the replacement of that first strip.

Benched blocks and an old mining district

Lots here are mostly clay on ground that was cut and filled to make a level pad, so one side of a block sits on natural clay and the other on fill. A driveway poured over the fill without compacting it settles along the fill line, which is why the base is taken down to firm material and built back up in layers. The suburb also sits inside the Killingworth-Wallsend Mine Subsidence District, proclaimed in 1971. For the driveway that is a line on a map rather than a constraint, because Subsidence Advisory NSW exempts driveways and hard stand spaces under all its guidelines except 4 and 5; for a shed or a garage on a new slab it is a reason to check the lot on the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer before ordering.

The builder’s minimum, and what comes after

The commonest job is the second car. The handover driveway is a single, and after a couple of winters of parking on the lawn the owner wants a strip beside it in plain concrete, dowelled in and poured on the same base so the two read as one slab. Where the first strip was poured thin or over loose fill it has often cracked or dropped, and then removal and replacement at the full width in one pour beats patching. New stages take a first exposed aggregate driveway carried through to the porch and the front path, and the side path, the alfresco and the shed slab usually go in on the same day because the crew and the pump are already there. Neighbouring Edgeworth has the same estate pattern on its newer land.

The crossing on an estate lot

Lake Macquarie City Council allows a crossing no wider than 4 metres at the kerb, wings not counted, so a widened driveway flares out behind the boundary and keeps the crossing at the cap. A first driveway, a widened crossing and a replaced crossing all need a Minor Public Works application before the pour, lodged with a site plan and a profile drawing. The Section 138 guide sets out the steps.

Finishes the estate favours

The newer stages lean dark, with charcoal roofs, rendered fronts and exposed aggregate underfoot. Coloured concrete suits owners who want the charcoal without the texture, and plain broom finish does the unseen work down the side and under the shed. Where an exposed finish is to run onto the crossing, council wants rhyolite or basalt for at least 75 percent of the stone, and many owners keep the crossing plain instead.

Cameron Park rates per square metre

Supplied and laid: removal of an old driveway adds about $35 to any finish; plain concrete $95 to $130; exposed aggregate $130 to $185; coloured $115 to $160; patios and alfresco $100 to $180; paths $90 to $130; shed and garage slabs $110 to $150. In Cameron Park it is the fill that moves a price, because a block cut and filled for the house needs its driveway base compacted in layers on the low side. Bracket the job in the calculator, read the cost guide, and hold whoever quotes to the specification and the Section 138 guide.