Driveway Installation in Greater Manchester
Block paving driveways dug out to the depth a car actually needs, laid on a compacted sub-base with edge courses that lock under turning wheels, and drained within your own boundary so you stay inside permitted development.
Driveway Installation
A driveway takes more punishment than any other surface around your house. It carries the weight of a car every single day, sits through every frost and downpour, and it’s usually the first thing anyone sees when they pull up. Lay it on a proper base and it stays flat and true for twenty years. Lay it on sand and a skim of hardcore, the way too many are, and it dips into ruts and holds puddles inside two winters. We dig out to the depth a driveway genuinely needs, compact an MOT Type 1 sub-base in layers, and lay every block on a screeded bed so the surface keeps its line under real load.
We work mainly in block paving, and there’s a practical reason for it: it’s strong, there’s a huge choice of colour and pattern, and a damaged block can be lifted and swapped rather than patched. Herringbone laid at forty-five degrees locks together under turning wheels, so it’s the pattern we reach for on most drives, with a contrasting border and an edge course set in concrete to frame it and hold everything tight. Where you’d rather a flagged than a blocked finish, we lay paving rated for vehicle weight on a bound bed, never the bedding-sand build that’s only ever meant for a patio.
Drainage is where a driveway is won or lost, and it’s also where the planning rules bite. A new front driveway needs planning permission if it uses an impermeable surface that drains straight onto the road, so we design every drive to drain within your own boundary instead, falling to a permeable channel, a border or a soakaway. That keeps you inside permitted development on almost every job, keeps water off the pavement, and keeps it away from your house wall where it could otherwise find the damp course.
- Block paving and paved driveways, laid to pattern
- Dug out to the depth a driveway needs for vehicle weight
- Compacted MOT Type 1 sub-base built up in layers
- Herringbone and edge courses that lock under turning wheels
- Drainage kept within your boundary, no planning headache
- Old drives broken out and carted away
How It Works
Free site visit
We come out, measure the drive, check access, levels and where the water needs to go, and run through block colours and patterns with you.
Written quote
An itemised price covering excavation, muck-away, sub-base, edgings, blocks and labour. No day-rate creep, no extras sprung at the end.
The build
Dig-out and muck-away, sub-base compacted in layers, edge courses set in concrete, then the blocks laid to pattern, cut in, whacked down and kiln-dried sand brushed into the joints.
Tidy handover
Waste cleared, the new drive swept and washed down, and a walk-round with you before we call it finished.
Driveways FAQs
Usually not. Under permitted development you can pave a front garden without permission as long as the surface is permeable, or rainwater drains to a lawn, border or soakaway within your own boundary. Permission only comes into it when more than five square metres of impermeable paving drains straight onto the road, and we design driveways so it never does.
It depends on the size, the access and what we find when we dig, because the excavation and sub-base are a fair chunk of the price whatever blocks go on top. We price per job rather than a blanket rate per square metre, since a tight drive with awkward access costs more per metre than a big open one, so you get an exact written figure after a free site visit before anything starts.
Deeper than a patio, because it carries cars rather than a table and chairs. We dig out past the topsoil into firm ground, then build back up with a compacted MOT Type 1 sub-base thick enough for the load, laid and whacked in layers rather than in one go. The exact depth depends on the ground we uncover, which is why we check it on the site visit.
Only if the base is skimped. Ruts and dips come from a thin or badly compacted sub-base, or from missing edge restraints that let the blocks creep. Dug to depth, compacted in layers and locked in with concrete edge courses, a block drive stays flat under daily use. If you’ve already got a sunken drive, we can often lift the affected area and relay it on a fresh base.
Yes. We break out and cart away an old, tired or sinking drive and lay a new one properly, or tie a new section neatly into what’s there. Matching an existing block is usually possible if it’s still a current range, and where it isn’t we’ll suggest a border or banding that makes the join look deliberate rather than patched.
Driveways Near You
We provide driveways across Leigh and the surrounding towns. Pick your area for local details.