Decking in Ingleby Barwick
Decking across Ingleby Barwick, TS17: composite £120 to £180 per square metre, timber £80 to £120, screens and structures £2,000 to £8,000. Compact new-build gardens on compacted subsoil, where footings have to be dug properly and privacy matters more than size.
New-build ground is not garden soil
Ingleby Barwick gardens across the villages, from Barwick and Beckfields through to the newer phases, share a common history: the plot was a construction compound, then it was levelled, then a thin skim of topsoil and turf went over compacted subsoil and whatever the site left behind. Two practical consequences for decking. Digging is hard work and occasionally finds buried rubble, brick and even lengths of old service duct, and drainage through that compacted layer is poor, so water sits. Footings therefore go down through the made ground to something that bears, and the underside of the deck gets membrane, stone and a genuinely open perimeter so air can move.
Small plots, so every square metre counts
Modern plots here are compact, and the temptation is to under-size the deck to keep some lawn. In practice the most common regret is a deck too shallow to seat people properly. Allow 2.5m of depth for a table and four chairs and 3.5m if you want a separate seating area, and take it out of the lawn that nobody sits on rather than the deck you will use every warm evening. Typical builds are 12 to 20m², at roughly £1,000 to £2,400 in timber or £1,450 to £3,500 in composite.
Overlooking is the real problem, not sun
Houses sit close together on these estates and upstairs windows look over everything, so privacy is what makes a deck comfortable. Slatted screening, angled so it blocks the sightline from a neighbouring upstairs window while keeping low evening light, works far better than a taller fence and looks deliberate. A pergola with side screening does the same job and adds shelter. On tight plots the finish details matter disproportionately: matching fascia, a flush threshold at the patio doors, and riser lighting rather than floodlights.
Composite suits these gardens
Small, highly visible, low-maintenance-minded gardens are where capped composite earns its price: no oiling to organise, no board replacement, and it still looks smart from the kitchen window in year ten. The comparison is set out in composite versus timber, with prices in the cost guide and screening options under pergolas and deck structures.