How To Build A Gravel Farm Road

When I first started developing the land, there was no road access to my land. There was however, a gravel road from the main road (connecting Tapah town - Cameron Highlands) to the boundary of my land that was used by the Orang Asli folks to get to their village.

My task as such is to build a road from the existing gravel road to my land which will be the formal entrance to my land. The planning and execution involved the following:

Site survey by a surveyor to establish the length of the proposed connecting road

My local surveyor was engaged to conduct this measurement. This measurement was conveyed to the owner of the adjacent land during my meeting with them at their office in Kuala Lumpur.

It was obvious that they wanted to know the starting point (road junction), the end point and the approximate route and length of the new gravel road (which was surveyed to be 56 m length). The proposed width of the road was decided at 3 m to allow for the width of a 4-WD vehicle with a couple of feet buffer on each side.

The above chart shows the land plan. Green is my land while yellow line is the proposed gravel road connecting from the existing gravel road T-junction. Main municipal road is on the right bottom corner. Disregard the orange shaded area.

All information was conveyed to the adjacent land owner in technical survey drawings and schematics as official records.

I had made my homework prior to the meetings (there was 3 meetings held for this issue) with the adjacent land owner in the context of the possibility the proposal was disagreed by the adjacent land owner. I however, during the meetings held with them gave my commitment on 2 issue:

1. As far as practicable, the route proposed shall be the shortest length possible

2. No mature forest trees or fruit trees will be taken down

In Peninsular Malaysia, the highest legal act in regards to land matters is the National Land Code 1965 which does not apply to Sabah and Sarawak states.

A provision in the code under Act 56 which is the Land Administrator's Right of Way is an in/out access right provision of land to a 'public stoppage'. Under Section 387 of the Code a public stoppage is defined as beach, river bank, train station or public road.

This provision is meant so as to allow a land owned by a person to be used and accessed by another person for the purpose of going in/out from it to a public stoppage.

In accordance with Section 390(1) of the National Land Code, the State Authority, land owner or occupier (villagers) of a land shall have the right to apply to the Land Administrator for them to be provided with the rights of way by using the Form 28A National Land Code in the case their land has no direct access to a public stoppage unless they trespass any adjacent land not owned by them.

Further literature review of the National Land Code could be accessed here at the Federal Territories Director of Land and Mines official web portal.

Sourcing for the nearest supply of gravel

The gravel was sourced from a nearby quarry located in Kampar town. Quarries supply a few types of gravel or quarry products which are categorized as below.

I will not discussed on each of the offered quarry products but randomly, 3/4 aggregate is the angled stone whitish in color with dark spots used in building and tarmac construction. I was only interested in the ordinary 2" crusher run which is normally use for gravel roads in Malaysia.

To make it clear, the only difference between a 2" crusher run and a 2" crusher run (ballast) is that the ballast type is cleaned 2" crusher run. Cleaned here means without grit or dust hence the vast difference in price per tonne.

It has to made aware that these prices are on-site price which means the buyer shall provide for transportation arrangements. Since I do not have any contacts during the time and to make planning and risk management more simpler, I decided to engage the quarry to provide transportation for me.

The additional cost for this transportation arrangement is discussed below. Decision on the date and time of delivery was made. The time of the delivery was to be done earliest in the morning prior to the arrival of the backhoe. This was because if the backhoe arrives to the farm prior to the delivery of the crusher run then the backhoe would be left idling without work while the charter-hire still being counted as a full day's work rate.

Backhoe rental company was advised to mobilize rigging tools and equipment in the event of the loaded quarry lorries gets stuck in the existing access gravel road which was at the time quite soft and muddy.

A 6-tyre tipper lorry unloading gravel load at the farm

Sourcing for excavator or backhoe contractor for undergrowth clearing, gravel leveling and compacting works

A contractor recommended by the local folks was engaged to do the work after daily-rate negotiations. Price was agreed at MYR 370.00 per day with the estimated work duration of 3 days firm.

As with any site work, the backhoe driver was asked to conduct a visit to my farm and to discussed any concerns that he might have. A walk through of the gravel road can be seen here.

How to build a farm gravel road - Commercial cost outcome

The cost for gravel including transportation is tabulated as below:

It can be seen that the total truck load ordered was 5 loads with different weight on each load. This is because the quarry used different trucks for each delivery. Even if a single truck was used the weight delivered will not be exactly the same since the pouring of the crusher run is done by the hopper operator at the quarry.

Rest assured that the price for each truck load shall be paid in accordance with the actual weight delivered and not by the truck load.

Dark coloration is due to wet condition of the gravel

As discussed earlier, the 2" crusher run price was MYR 18.00 per MT excluding transport. The above unit price of MYR 26.00 was transportation included.

Price for backhoe rental was MYR 370.00 X 3 working days which totaled MYR 1,110.00.

In all, my total expenses for building the gravel farm road was MYR 2,826.00

Additional matters to note

The crusher run price including transportation per MT was MYR 26.00. This price was specifically for a 6-tyre lorry. A 10-tyre lorry will have a price per MT of MYR 24.00 which is cheaper.

I did not request to deploy 10-tyre lorries after considering the risk of a 10-tyre lorry getting stuck in the existing gravel road due to the significant weight (loaded) not to mention the potential damage to the existing road which is owned by the adjacent land owner.

A car parking area was also made to cater for future parking lot requirements.

The thickness of the crusher run layer was not considered in detail due to the fact that the soil was not accurately leveled. The amount of crusher run on each section of the road to make it leveled will in turn varies the crusher run thickness.

The finished gravel access road

After 1 year the road may need to be topped-up with additional gravel since there was no compaction being done on the soil prior to the pouring of the crusher run. Compaction was only done on the crusher run. I anticipate that the road will sink a bit as time goes by.