Resin Driveways in Harlow, Essex

Harlow Council states that "open front gardens form part of the restrictive covenants that apply to most of the properties in Harlow". These are a legacy of the New Town's design, which intended front gardens to be open in appearance — no fences, walls, intrusions or parking.

The covenant is completely separate from planning permission. You can satisfy planning and still be in breach of your covenant. And the line that matters for a driveway is unambiguous: any car parking hardstanding requires the council's covenant consent.

The council's guidelines, which set out what needs consent and what does not:

• Any hardstanding for car parking — consent required. This is the one that catches driveway projects.
• Hard landscaping (brick, paving, concrete, tarmac, shingle) is fine within the depth limits — up to 75% of a small or medium front garden, or 50% of a large one. Beyond that, consent is required.
• Walls up to 300mm, fences up to 600mm and gates up to 750mm need no consent. Above those heights they do.
• Soft landscaping — grass, shrubs, planting — needs nothing.

In practice this means a Harlow driveway is usually a two-track job: the surface itself may well need no planning application, but the parking hardstanding will still need covenant consent from the council. Any contractor quoting you for a Harlow front garden without mentioning the covenant has probably not worked here.

Usually not, if it is permeable. Nationally, front-garden surfacing that water cannot pass through needs planning permission above five square metres unless run-off is directed to a border or soakaway — solid concrete, sealed asphalt and conventional block paving all fall inside that.

Resin bound drains through the surface, so it sits outside the requirement at any size. But in Harlow that is only half the answer — being exempt from planning does not exempt you from the covenant, and it does not override an Article 4 Direction. Both still apply.

Harlow sits largely on boulder clay over the chalk of the Stort valley — water-retentive ground where an impermeable surface shows its limitations quickly. Permeability has to run through the whole build-up rather than just the top layer, or the water simply sits out of sight.

We bring the aggregate range to your home so colours can be judged in daylight against your own brickwork. The pale brick and render across much of the New Town housing tends to sit well against cooler greys and flints; the older stock around Old Harlow usually carries a warmer buff better. The finished surface is seamless and level, with no loose stone and no joints for weeds.