Summer Tasks - Parking and Securing (part 1)

While itching to get going with some tree planting and really struggling to be patient, it has been good to get on with (be distracted by) some other important tasks. 

The Indian Restaurant (Cinamon Lounge) around the corner have tolerated my parking in their car park so far this summer, but that wasn't a long term solution. Also, there were twin issues of the road entrance not being secure - I was worried about fly tipping, and also the wind often blew the gate around as it didn't have a gate post , and the gate being  fairly ancient , it was likely to smash itself to smithereens if left much longer to its own devices. I was keen not to have to find several hundred pounds for a new gate. 

So, what to do?

The starting point,  a driveway with nowhere to park...

Initially I figured I could level some land to park on by collecting garden and building rubble that friends and Facebook contacts had been unable to get rid off without the tip being open (more Covid19 issues). This sort of worked a little, but it quickly became clear that it would take the rest of this summer - and likely next summer, to be able to collect enough material if I were to continue doing it at a bag at a time. I needed to coax my mind into thinking on the scale of a farmer and not a gardner. 

Asking around and shopping around, it seemed that buying in hardcore or crushed stone would be pretty expensive - a likely £500 bill to pay for 20 tons - which wasn't all that appealing as it would just about be all of this years remaining budget gone. 

A lucky google search turned up a link to Wakefield Councils website where they advertised "planings" - the crushed stone left over from scraping up roads prior to re-surfacing, it is also often called "scalping'. This looked cheaper and was at least uniform in its constituency (no rock bigger than 40mm in size and nothing will grow in it meaning weeds are easily kept at bay). A couple of phone calls later, I have managed to do a very good deal based on the fact that the project was for the greater good and on the fact that I had to get up very early in the morning to receive the delivery straight from a job. All told, I paid £250 for 35 tons of scalping. I gather this is exception value. 

One very early start later and the first load arrived - 15 tons, placed expertly on the driveway. Thanks to my generous friend Phil, I had a ton of weed suppressant fabric (or in his trade, carpet backing) which protected the existing grass from the delivery and also worked as a ground sheet for my parking area to keep weeds from growing through. 

I was am lucky to share this bit of driveway with my neighbour David, who has been incredibly enthusiastic about the project and about donating his time/endless energy to assist me. Without David it would have been a lonely and tough job handling the deliveries. Davids dog Bob came along to supervise. 

It was a bit of a pain having to immediately shift several tons of scalping so that we could use the driveway again, but all things considered, the nightmares I had the previous night about the truck / the scalping / myself all rolling down the hill out of control, proved unfounded. 

Delivery 2 (another 20 tons) proved a little more eventful. I hadn't initially wanted so much, but given I had the attention of the council and the cheap deal on offer, I figured I would over order as I know a lot will get used on paths, areas for camping/benches etc. 

The delivery lorry ended up getting stuck and we spent an hour digging the poor driver out - the driver was late for his next job. The recent rain had made the grass very slippy and that drive is much steeper than it looks. 

Then, when the driver announced he had just about finished emptying the truck and there was only a little bit left, this happened :

Yet again, we had to spend a few hours clearing the driveway with very little help from Bob the dog!

So, now I had the materials, time to experiment. 

It turns out that scalping are perfect for making a parking area. They are easy to spread around and give plenty of grip to tyres (as you would expect of material that used to be a road). It was fairly easy to level things up too and they compact down well when you drive on them. I have noticed they improve further with some rain - the surface seems to form a bit of a crust, not like tarmac, but not far off. It will need a little tweaking as it settles to really level off, but I am very happy with the quantity of space and the quality of space I have been able to make for the money. I have tons (literally) of scalping left for paths in the years to come. 

I have built two parking spaces so far, one for my var / car that has a fantastic elevated viewing position and one for visitors in the field entrance (which should also stop the field entrance getting too boggy). 

The top parking space should double as the beginnings of access for people with mobility issues. The field is not currently friendly for wheelchair users and it will be hard to progress that just yet, but a starting point is to now have an entrance that will get a car into a position where a wheelchair ramp can be lowered and the views enjoyed by wheelchair users. It still needs to settle and I need to level things a little more, but it was parked on this weekend and it works!