Handover Done, No Driveway: A Melton New-Estate Checklist

It is the most common call we get from the growth estates: the house is finished, the keys are handed over, and the driveway is a rectangle of crushed rock. Before you start collecting quotes, five minutes of checking will change what you ask for.

1. Read your inclusions and exclusions schedule

Volume builders in the western corridor commonly exclude the driveway, and sometimes the vehicle crossing as well. Which of the three situations you are in changes everything:

- **Crossing poured, driveway excluded.** The most common. You need a driveway that meets the existing crossing correctly at the boundary, and you may not need a permit at all. - **Neither poured.** The crossing permit is yours, and it is the first step. - **Both poured to minimum spec.** Nothing is required, but the driveway may be narrower than you expected, and widening it is a separate conversation involving the crossing.

2. Find your estate design guidelines

Most corridor estates have a design guideline document that survives settlement and governs what you build in the front setback. They commonly specify driveway materials, permitted finishes and colour ranges, and maximum width at the boundary.

This is a contractual obligation to the developer, entirely separate from the council permit. A driveway can be perfectly council-compliant and still breach it. Read it before you decide on a finish — exposed aggregate is frequently encouraged and plain grey sometimes discouraged.

3. Check whether a crossing permit is needed

If the crossing does not exist, you need Melton City Council's Permit to Create or Interfere with a Vehicle Crossing before any work in the road reserve. Allow around ten business days for assessment of a complete application, and note that the contractor must carry at least $10 million public liability cover to work there.

4. Locate your service trenches

This is the site condition that matters most and the one nobody thinks about. The trenches carrying water, gas, power and telecommunications to your house were dug, backfilled and never compacted to the standard of undisturbed ground.

A driveway poured straight over one, with no attention paid to it, is the single most common reason a two-year-old estate driveway has a crack running from the street toward the house. Point them out to whoever quotes and ask how they intend to deal with them. A good answer involves compacting in layers and considering the reinforcement and joint layout around the trench line. A shrug is informative in a different way.

5. Finish the heavy vehicle movements first

If the landscaper, the fencer or the shed installer still needs machinery on the block, pour afterwards. Concrete reaches full strength over roughly 28 days, and a bobcat on a three-week-old slab is an expensive lesson.

Then get quotes

With the contract, the guidelines, the permit position and the trench locations in hand, you are asking for quotes on a defined job rather than a vague one — and the prices you get back will be comparable to each other, which is the whole point.