A wide limestone path running away between new planting to a clipped beech hedge at Exton

Driveways & Paths

Driveways and paths across Devon. Built permeable as standard, on a sub base that takes the weight of a car rather than the weight of a garden chair.

Your project

A way in that works with the house and the ground.

Driveways, parking areas and garden paths. The surface is one decision; drainage, access and the load underneath it are the others. We work through them together.

Driveways and parking areas
Paths, entrances and connected paving
Drainage, edging and ground preparation

Talk about your driveway

A free visit and a written quote. No obligation to go ahead.

Start here

Work out where the rain will go first

This one catches people out, and it is worth knowing before you get any quotes at all.

For a house, laying more than five square metres of impermeable paving in the front garden generally needs planning permission unless the rainwater drains to a suitable permeable area within the property. Permeable paving is another route, subject to any restrictions affecting the property.

We work out which drainage approach suits the ground and include it in the quote.

Impermeable

Standard concrete, sealed tarmac or solid block paving. Over five square metres in a front garden generally needs planning permission unless runoff goes to a suitable permeable area within the property.

Permeable

Gravel, permeable block paving, porous asphalt or resin bound. Generally, no permission is needed whatever the size, but individual properties can have restrictions. We check yours before work starts. This is what we build to as standard.

The other route is to direct the run off into a lawn, a border or a soakaway inside your own boundary rather than out onto the road. These front-garden rules do not settle every planning question. Other restrictions and any work to the road access need checking separately.

Rain, surface, destination

Water always goes somewhere.

Follow it from the driveway to where it ends up. The boundary is what makes the difference.

Through the surfaceInto the gardenTowards the road

A permeable surface

The blocks are laid with open joints, so rain soaks straight down through them into a layer of clean stone underneath, which holds it until the ground takes it. This is what we build to as standard.

Open joints let the rain straight through into clean stone underneath, which holds it until the ground takes it. Our standard build.

Keep it inside the boundary

A slight fall takes the run off to a slot drain along the garden edge, and from there underground to a soakaway — a cell of clean stone buried under the planting, where it soaks away slowly. Nothing stands on the lawn and nothing leaves your boundary.

A slight fall takes the run off to a slot drain at the garden edge, then underground to a soakaway. Nothing stands on the lawn.

The route to avoid

The run off crosses the boundary and out onto the road — the one destination a drive should not have. Past five square metres, draining this way needs planning permission.

The run off crosses the boundary onto the road — the one destination a drive should not have. Past five square metres it needs planning permission.

Conceptual property and water routes. Illustration only, not a drainage design or to scale. Ground conditions and the property determine the appropriate solution.

If a quote you have been given does not mention this, it is worth asking why.

The surfaces

What you can actually put down

Gravel. The most forgiving option and the most at home on a country property. Naturally permeable, easy to top up, and cheap to repair. Laid on a proper sub base with a stabilising grid it stays where you put it rather than migrating into the lawn.

Block paving. The neatest finish, and you can lift and relay a section rather than digging up the lot. A permeable specification can help meet the drainage rule, but the property and ground still need checking.

Resin bound. Smooth, permeable and low maintenance. It is also the least forgiving of a poor base, because it goes down as one continuous surface with nothing to hide behind.

Natural stone and setts. For a driveway that has to look like it belongs to an older house.

Most people choose a driveway by looking at surfaces. The surface is the last decision, not the first.

Sinai Pearl limestone paving wrapping around the corner of a house, running past the patio doors and continuing along the far side

Underneath

A driveway is a road, not a patio

A patio carries people and garden furniture. A driveway carries a car, and a car weighs well over a tonne, concentrated onto four small contact patches that sit in almost exactly the same two ruts every single day.

That is why failed driveways fail in a pattern you will recognise once you know to look for it. Two shallow troughs where the wheels go. Blocks sinking near the gate, where every vehicle turns. A puddle that forms in the same place every time.

None of that is the surface failing. It is the sub base being too shallow for the load, or laid on ground that was never dug out and compacted in the first place.

The edges

What stops a driveway spreading

Every block in a driveway leans on the one next to it. The ones at the perimeter have nothing holding them in unless there is a haunched edging course locking the whole thing together.

Blocks creeping outwards and gaps opening along the sides is what a missing edge restraint looks like three years later. It is invisible on the day the job finishes and it is the reason a lot of block driveways look tired early.

Water

Where the rain goes

Water has to go somewhere deliberate. A channel drain, a soakaway, a border. Not towards the house, and not out onto the pavement.

This is worked out before anything is laid, because a driveway that drains the wrong way cannot be corrected afterwards without taking it up.

The kerb

Getting off the road legally

If you are creating a new access across a pavement you need a dropped kerb, and that is a separate application to the highways authority rather than something we can simply lay.

Driving over a full height kerb without one is not allowed, and the council can require you to put it right. We will tell you whether your job needs one before you commit to anything.

Paths

Getting round the garden in February

Paths are a smaller job than driveways and the same principles apply, minus the vehicle loading.

What matters more is grip and drainage. A smooth path in a wet Devon winter grows algae and becomes genuinely dangerous by February. Choosing a surface with texture, and making sure water runs off it rather than sitting on it, is most of the job.

What it costs

No price list, and here is why

Driveway prices depend on what is underneath and how much of it has to come out. The same driveway on free draining ground and on wet clay are different jobs, with different amounts of digging, different sub base depths and possibly drainage that was not in the original plan.

So we come and look, at no charge and with no obligation. Most jobs are quoted at a fixed price for the work listed. If an hourly rate suits the job better, we agree the rates and how materials will be charged before starting. If something unexpected means extra work, we stop and agree the work and price with you in writing before continuing.

Want a price for your garden?

We come out, look at the space and give you a written quote. No charge and no obligation.

Get a free quote

Peace of mind

Work we stand behind

If something is not right with our workmanship, speak to Graham. We come back and put it right. Any material warranties are subject to the supplier or manufacturer's terms.

Where we work

Okehampton and across Devon

We work from Okehampton out towards Crediton, Exeter, Exmouth and the Exe valley. If you are not sure whether you are in range, just ask.

More of what we do