Concrete driveways in Newcastle

Driveways in Newcastle, 2300

The suburb called Newcastle is the city centre itself, the grid Henry Dangar drew in 1823 between Hunter Street and King Street, with Civic Park at its heart and the light rail along Hunter Street since 2019. It is not a driveway suburb in the ordinary sense. Of its occupied dwellings, 92.8 percent are flats or apartments and only 2.2 percent are separate houses; the houses that exist are on the edges, in the two-storey terraces and cottages that run up into The Hill and across to Cooks Hill and Newcastle East. So the concrete work is small and awkward rather than long and wide: a rear lane garage apron, a hardstand where a garden was, a courtyard, a short driveway squeezed beside a terrace built to the street.

Floodplain, clay and a mined-out hill

Council describes the city as built on a floodplain and highly prone to flash flooding, with Cottage Creek draining the south east of the centre, and Hunter Street was under water in the June 2007 storm. Under much of the city, from Cooks Hill towards Adamstown, is a thick clay layer, while the peninsula to the north is sand and the coal measures come to the surface along the coast. The suburb appears to sit wholly, or nearly so, inside the Newcastle Mine Subsidence District, with most of the Newcastle East peninsula outside it. Subsidence Advisory NSW exempts driveways and hard stand spaces under all its guidelines except 4 and 5, so an apron or a hardstand is not what the district governs; the NSW Planning Portal Spatial Viewer gives the answer for a lot.

Small pours, tight streets

Almost every job in the centre is a removal and replacement of old concrete in a space a truck cannot reach, which means a pump or barrows and a small load priced as such. A rear lane apron at the width the lane allows, a hardstand or a courtyard behind a terrace, a short plain concrete run to a garage under the house, or an exposed aggregate forecourt in front of a renovated cottage. Parking for the truck and the pump is part of the quote in these streets. Merewether to the south west is where the region’s ordinary driveway work begins.

The crossing from a city lane or street

A new or altered crossing, even a lane apron, needs City of Newcastle’s Section 138 (Type 1) approval, and where the frontage is a classified road Transport for NSW has a say too. The crossing is built to drawing A1300, at least 100 mm thick with SL72 mesh, square to the kerb and clear of poles, pits and street trees. The Section 138 guide walks through the application.

Finishes that suit terraces and courtyards

A courtyard or a forecourt behind a terrace takes coloured concrete or exposed aggregate well, because it is seen from the house rather than the street. A lane apron and a garage run are plain broom finish, which is also what council’s drawing wants on the crossing, with sealer not permitted there.

Newcastle rates per square metre

Supplied and laid: paths and courtyards $90 to $130; patios and alfresco $100 to $180; shed and garage slabs $110 to $150; plain concrete $95 to $130; coloured $115 to $160; exposed aggregate $130 to $185; removal of old concrete adds about $35. In the centre the size of the pour and the access move the figure more than anything else, because a crew, a pump and a parked truck cost much the same for 12 m² as for 40. Bracket it in the calculator, read the cost guide, and check the specification and the Section 138 guide before comparing quotes.