paving
Driveways
£45 to £125 per square metre covers the common driveway surfaces in 2026, tarmac at the bottom and block paving at £85 to £125. A 60 square metre two car drive lands between £2,100 in gravel and £8,000 in concrete or blocks.
What this covers
What it costs. £2,500 to £5,000 buys a 60 square metre driveway in tarmac or resin during 2026, while concrete and block paving reach £8,000 at the same size. Full cost breakdown.
What the job covers
- Excavating and removing the old surface
- Sub-base, edging and drainage
- Block, tarmac, gravel and concrete surfaces
- Dropped kerb applications where one is needed
- Soakaways and permeable build-ups
Worth knowing
Crossing the footway to reach a new driveway needs the highway authority's consent, and it is a separate application from any planning permission for the drive itself. Building the drive first does not oblige them to grant it.
Highways Act 1980, vehicle crossings
What is involved
Cars change the arithmetic. A family hatchback puts roughly 1.5 tonnes through four contact patches and a large SUV closer to 2.5, which is why driveway groundwork goes deeper than anything built for feet. Excavation normally reaches 250mm to 350mm below finished level, leaving 150mm to 200mm of compacted MOT Type 1 beneath the surfacing. Clay subgrade or a former lawn wants more again, plus a geotextile separator so the stone cannot punch down into soft ground.
Rainfall has nowhere to go once tarmac replaces grass. England treats that as a planning matter: an impermeable front surface over five square metres between the house and the road needs permission, unless run-off is directed to a lawn, border or soakaway inside the boundary. Permeable surfacing of any size is exempt. Scotland operates no five square metre threshold at all, so a hard surface between the house and a road has to be porous or drain to a porous area whatever its size.
Dropped kerbs are a separate job and a separate application. Councils charge £139 to £570 simply to assess one, and the crossing itself commonly totals £2,000 to £3,000 with the footway rebuilt to highway specification. Falls across the finished surface matter as much, around 1 in 60 to 1 in 80 away from the building, with a threshold drain where the drive meets a garage door. Edge restraint holds the rest together, and a drive laid without haunched kerbs spreads sideways inside a couple of winters.
Choosing someone for the job
Dig depth: ask how far down they are going and how many millimetres of Type 1 go back in. Permeability: ask whether the surface drains through, or whether run-off is piped to a border. Dropped kerb: ask whether the council application sits inside the price. Guarantee: ask what it covers and who honours it if the firm closes. CBDU number: ask for it before any spoil leaves the site.
Common questions
Do I need planning permission for a new driveway?
In England, only for an impermeable surface over five square metres between the house and the road, and even then not if run-off goes to a lawn, border or soakaway. Permeable surfacing of any size is exempt. Scotland sets no size threshold: a hard surface between the house and a road must be porous or drain to a porous area, however small.
How deep should a driveway sub-base be?
150mm to 200mm of compacted MOT Type 1 suits most domestic drives on reasonable ground. Soft clay or made ground needs more, often 250mm with a geotextile membrane beneath it. Compaction is done in lifts of 75mm to 100mm, because a single deep layer never compacts all the way through.