Driveways, patios and gardens in Leeds

Back-to-backs, semis and stone villas

Most Leeds homes are semis or terraces. In the 2021 census, 37.5% of households lived in a semi-detached house and 25% in a terrace, against 31.5% and 23% across England.

The 1930s left a big mark: 13.8% of homes in Leeds were built in that decade, against 10% nationally. The city also still has around 19,500 back-to-back houses from before 1919. The council’s own back-to-backs are in wards such as Armley, Beeston and Holbeck, Gipton and Harehills, and Hunslet and Riverside. A back-to-back has no back garden, so whatever space there is at the front has to work hard.

In the older suburbs, front gardens sit behind stone. Headingley Hill’s villas stand well back in large plots behind stone boundary walls, and Chapel Allerton’s sandstone walls are usually between four and seven feet high. Walls like that decide where a drive can go.

Ground, slopes and drainage

North Leeds sits on gritstone, which forms ridges with steep slopes above the Wharfe valley. To the south, the Coal Measures, layers of mudstone, siltstone, sandstone and coal, fall gently towards the Aire. On a sloping plot, the levels and drainage come first, so the rain runs away from the house.

The council’s front garden guide says many of the city’s drains are old, and asks for surfaces that let rain soak in: permeable block paving, porous asphalt or resin bound. It suggests gravel only on a nearly level garden, with the first two metres from the road in another material. We lay all three of the surfaces it prefers.

Leeds knows what water can do. On Boxing Day 2015 the Aire rose more than a metre above the Great Flood of 1866, and 2,845 properties flooded. The River Aire flood scheme, finished in 2024, now protects more than 4,000 homes. For a drive, the everyday problem is surface water: the same flood paper notes that ground baked hard in summer lets heavy rain run straight off.

Dropped kerbs in Leeds

It starts with an inspection, which you request from Leeds City Council. It allows a new crossing only where there are at least 5 metres between the boundary and the house, and one onto an A, B or C road, such as the A58, needs planning approval too. Trees near the spot go to the council’s forestry team, and a lamp post or telegraph pole in the way can be moved by its owner, at a charge.

Once the inspector agrees, the council doesn’t build the crossing itself. A contractor accredited under the New Roads and Street Works Act builds it, under a council licence and to the council’s standards. We’ll put the request in for you, and once it’s approved, we build the crossing ourselves.

Conservation areas

There are 80 conservation areas across the Leeds district, many of them residential, including Headingley, Chapel Allerton, Roundhay, Meanwood, Horsforth and Armley. The only Article 4 direction Leeds publishes covers houses in multiple occupation, not front gardens, walls or fences, although some individual homes have had their permitted development rights removed.

Taking down a front wall, gate or fence a metre or more high beside a road in a conservation area does need planning permission. The council’s householder design guide warns that raising walls, adding railings or changing materials will often be inappropriate, and tree work in a conservation area needs six weeks’ notice.