Hi Len. What type of soil do you have? How exposed is the site? How large would you like the shrub to be? Whereabouts will it be, ie. next to the house wall, a boundary wall or fence, or will it be without support?

What do you mean by 'isolated', by the way?

It's situated in between two bungalows. It will have the sun for most of the day. By isolated I mean there is no other plant, shrub or building closer than two metres away. The soil is mostly of rubble with a little earth, that's why I need to put something more substantial in. Height something no higher than a metre would be ideal, with approx the same spread.

Is it sandy earth, Treetop, or doughy clay? Will cars be parking there regularly? Has the soil been treated to stop weeds, and with what?

More clay than anything Tug, That's why I need to fill it in with better soil. Cars will not be parking on the actual spot, only in the parking bay and never with exhaust facing that way.

Cheers Len aka treetop

My experience with clay is that replacing it will stop the drainage completely.
First, I would check the percolation rate there:
Dig a hole one foot deep, and fill it with water. once it has drained, fill it again, and measure how long it takes to drain again. If it doesn't drain at least one inch per hour, you will need to work hard to engineer enough drainage to grow plants.
If it does drain fast enough, I would dig out the bed at least a foot deep, and mix it with soil conditioners: 1 part coarse sand or grit, 2 parts compost, and for parts of the original clay. It should be mixed thoroughly, so that there are no lumps or layers of compost. About an inch of the conditioned soil goes on the bottom of the bed, and gets scratched in, to form a transition layer. Any sudden change in soil texture will stop the drainage. Once the bed is filled with conditioned soil and watered to settle it, it can be planted.

Okay thanks for that.

Oops! That should have been "4 parts original clay"! Interesting phonetic writing mistake. :]

You're welcome, Treetop!

suggestions are one of the smaller viburnum, hebe, euyonomous [spelling?] there are yellow and green and white and green ones too. Escallonia is a nice shrub and is also evergreen.

if you scroll down and click on the s at the bottom you will find shrubs listed.

Euonymus, Sbg. :)
Maybe dwarf India Hawthorn (Raphiolepis indica), or Dwarf Jasmine (Jasminum parkeri).

Thank you everyone.