Concrete driveways, Newcastle

Concrete driveways in Jesmond

A small, mostly rented suburb where fewer than half the homes are houses, so the concrete work is shared driveways and unit hardstands as often as a replacement out the front.

Driveways in Jesmond, 2299

Jesmond is a small suburb about 9.5 km west of the Newcastle CBD, with its shops on Blue Gum Road, Newcastle Road and the Inner City Bypass on its edge, and Jesmond Park to the south. It began as Dark Creek, a village whose residents worked saw mills, orchards, stone quarries and the Lambton mines. The Woolworths shopping centre that opened here in 1964 was the first regional centre in the Newcastle area, and the university next door in Callaghan has shaped the place since. Fewer than half the dwellings are separate houses, more than a quarter are semis or townhouses, another quarter are flats, and two thirds of homes are rented. So the concrete work is shared driveways, unit car spaces and courtyards for strata schemes and landlords as much as a single driveway in front of a family house.

Dark Creek and a district boundary that steps around the suburb

Dark Creek runs through Jesmond, and council lists it as a flood catchment that affects Jesmond, Callaghan and North Lambton in moderate to large events. The suburb sits low, at about 15 metres, so falls and drainage matter more than slope. Part of Jesmond appears to lie inside the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District, the land towards Wallsend and Lambton, while a block near the suburb’s label sits outside, and the map draws no street boundaries. For a driveway it is background, because driveways and hard stand spaces are exempt under all Subsidence Advisory NSW guidelines other than 4 and 5; for a garage the lot goes through the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer first.

Shared driveways, unit hardstands and the odd family replacement

The commonest enquiry from Jesmond is a body corporate or a landlord with a shared accessway that has cracked into panels, and a removal and replacement poured at a thickness that suits daily traffic from several units. Visitor bays, unit courtyards and the paths between them usually go in on the same pour. The separate houses that remain, on lots that are turning into dual occupancies and townhouses, produce the ordinary plain concrete replacement and, when a house comes down, the shared driveway for what replaces it. Lambton next door has more of the family houses and fewer of the units.

The crossing for a shared accessway

City of Newcastle’s drawing A1300 caps a double residential crossing at 4.5 metres at the kerb, so a shared driveway wider than that behind the boundary tapers to the cap across the verge, and the drawing holds a 1.2 metre band across the crossing at 1 in 40 for a future footpath. On Blue Gum Road, where council is building nearly a kilometre of shared path along the western side, that band is not academic. Each new, widened or replaced crossing is a Section 138 (Type 1) application before the pour, and the Section 138 guide has the steps.

Finishes for units and rentals

Strata schemes and landlords tend to choose a plain broom finish for the accessway and spend on an exposed aggregate forecourt at the street, or a coloured slab in the courtyard where the tenants sit. Council’s drawing wants plain broom on the crossing and bars sealer from it, so a sealed finish stops at the boundary.

Jesmond rates per square metre

Supplied and laid: plain concrete $95 to $130; paths $90 to $130; patios and courtyards $100 to $180; coloured $115 to $160; exposed aggregate $130 to $185; shed and garage slabs $110 to $150; removal of the old concrete adds about $35. What moves a Jesmond figure is the number of parties involved, because one shared driveway for six units is a single pour priced near the bottom of its range, and six courtyards done separately are six small pours priced near the top. Bracket the job in the calculator, read the cost guide, and hand the specification and the Section 138 guide to whoever quotes.

Before the crossing is poured

The strip from your front boundary to the kerb needs City of Newcastle's Section 138 (Type 1) approval before it is poured, whether the driveway is new, wider than before or a replacement. Council's drawing A1300 fixes the width, the 100 mm thickness and the plain broom finish on that strip. What happens inside the boundary is your call.

The application, step by step

Straight answers

Asked in Jesmond

Does a strata block in Jesmond need council approval to replace its shared driveway?

Only for the part on public land. Inside the boundary the accessway and the car spaces are the scheme's own concern, poured as thick as the traffic warrants and drained to the scheme's stormwater. The strip from the boundary to the kerb is a crossing, and City of Newcastle approves a replacement of it through a Section 138 (Type 1) application exactly as it does a new one, built to drawing A1300 with a double crossing no wider than 4.5 metres at the kerb.

Which parts of Jesmond are inside the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District?

The state map places land on the Wallsend and Lambton sides of the suburb inside the district and steps the boundary around a block near the Jesmond label that sits outside, so the answer is part, not all. The map draws no suburb or street boundaries, so a lot is checked on the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer. That check matters for a garage, not for the driveway, because driveways and hard stand spaces are exempt under every Subsidence Advisory NSW guideline except 4 and 5.

Does Dark Creek flooding change how a Jesmond driveway is poured?

On the low blocks it can. Council lists Dark Creek as a catchment that floods Jesmond in moderate to large events and issues a Flood Information Certificate for a single property, and that certificate is worth reading before the levels are set. A driveway that falls to a garage below street level wants a grated drain at the threshold and a fall that carries water away from the house rather than into it. The concreter should shoot the levels on site and set the falls to suit.

Jesmond, 2299

Measured on the block, not priced from a photo

One independent local concreter, one site visit, one figure in writing for a Jesmond driveway.