Which surface should you pick?
Four options, what each one costs, and the thing about it that nobody selling it wants to mention.
Resin bound
Guide price: £90 to £140 per square metre fitted. Best for: a smooth, sweepable finish and no planning permission on a front drive.
Washed stone mixed with clear resin and trowelled out by hand. It goes down as one continuous surface with no joints to weed and no loose grit. It is permeable, so rain drains through it rather than off it, which keeps a new front drive clear of the five square metre planning rule.
The downside: it is only as good as the base under it, and a permeable surface over a sealed slab will pond. It also needs a dry, warm-enough day to lay, so dates move in bad weather. Repairing a damaged patch is possible but the new resin rarely matches the weathered surface exactly.
Block paving
Guide price: £100 to £150 per square metre fitted. Best for: pattern, borders, and being able to lift and relay later.
Concrete or clay blocks on sharp sand over a compacted sub-base, held in by haunched edges. The one real advantage over everything else here is that it comes apart. Dig up a service, sort a settled patch, extend the drive in two years, and the same blocks go back down.
The downside: joints. Sand washes out and needs topping up, weeds seed in the joints, and a block drive laid without a proper edge restraint spreads and opens up. It is also the most labour to lay, which is why it costs more than tarmac.
Tarmac
Guide price: £60 to £90 per square metre fitted. Best for: covering a large area for the least money, quickly.
Hot laid in a base course and a wearing course, rolled while hot, edged in concrete. On a long drive nothing else comes close on price per square metre, and it is the fastest to lay.
The downside: it is soft in hot weather, so stands and jockey wheels press in. Petrol and diesel dissolve it. Red fades. It is also the surface doorstep traders use, so a tarmac drive can be a harder sell when you come to move, unless the workmanship is obviously good.
Gravel
Guide price: the cheapest of the four by a distance. Best for: a long rural drive, or a budget that will not stretch to a bound surface.
We do not sell gravel as one of our four main surfaces, but it deserves a mention because it is often the right answer. It is naturally permeable, easy to top up, and it makes a noise when somebody walks on it, which some people want. Laid into a plastic grid it stays put much better than loose stone.
The downside: it migrates. Onto the pavement, into the road, into the lawn, and into the house on shoes. It is hard work with a pushchair, a wheelchair or a bike, and it needs raking. Loose gravel on a sloped drive ends up at the bottom of the slope.
Quick comparison
And the part that is not on this page
None of the above matters if the sub-base is thin. A £140 per square metre resin drive on 50mm of unwashed hardcore will fail before a £70 tarmac drive on a properly compacted 150mm base. When you compare quotes, compare the build-up first and the surface second.
Still weighing it up?
We bring sample boards to the site visit so you can hold them against your own brickwork.