Tandem Driveway: Will Two Cars Fit Nose to Tail?

If your frontage is wide enough for two cars side by side with room to open doors, that is usually the more convenient layout, because either car can leave without moving the other. Tandem comes into its own when the garden is deep but narrow, which is common on terraced and semi detached streets.

The trade off is shuffling cars. If the person who leaves first always parks at the front, tandem works smoothly. If schedules vary, expect some moving of cars in the morning.

Start with the length of both cars as written in the handbooks, not a guess. Then add space at the pavement end so the rear car does not overhang the footway, which is not allowed. Add a gap between the two cars to walk through and to open a boot or tailgate. Add space at the house end for the front door, a porch, meter boxes, bins and walking past.

It is easy to forget the house end. A drive that fits two cars bumper to bumper against the front wall rarely works in daily life, because you cannot get past to the door or get the bins out.

Even with the cars in a line, you need width to open the driver's door and get out, and ideally to walk down the side of the cars to the house. On very narrow plots it is worth checking whether the doors can open fully against a fence, a wall or a planted border. Our page on driveways too small for two cars covers the side by side width question in more detail.

A tandem drive usually needs only a single width dropped kerb, which can be simpler than widening one for side by side parking. Any dropped kerb is arranged with the local highway authority, and parking over a footway without one is not permitted.

Gates on a tandem drive have to clear the rear car when closed, so allow for their swing or choose a sliding option. Surface choice follows the usual rules: block paving can be lifted locally later, resin bound is permeable and seamless, and both need a properly built base to take two cars parked in the same wheel tracks every day.

On a free site visit we measure the garden, check levels and falls away from the house, look at the pavement and existing kerb, and mark out the parking positions so you can see them on the ground. Only then do we quote the build. All our work carries our ten year guarantee.