Block paving restoration
Sunken and rutted areas lifted, the base rebuilt and the same blocks re-laid — usually invisible afterwards. Full re-sand and optional seal brings the rest of the surface back with it.
Driveway repairs & restoration
Not every tired driveway needs replacing. Not every failing one is worth repairing. We tell you which yours is, then fix the cause as well as the surface. Repairs from £250 (2026).
- Honest Repair-or-Replace Advice
- Drainage Faults Fixed at Source
- Free Assessment Visit
When repair beats replacement — and when it doesn't
The economics are simple: a repair is worth doing when the driveway's structure — the sub-base and drainage — is fundamentally sound and the problem is local or cosmetic. It's money wasted when the structure itself has failed, because the fault will telegraph straight back through any new surface within a couple of winters.
Repair usually wins when: a few areas have settled where a trench or tree root disturbed the base; joints have emptied of sand and the blocks are loosening but not sinking; the surface has weathered, stained or greened over; an edge course has come loose; or water is ponding in one spot with an identifiable cause.
Replacement usually wins when: sinking is widespread rather than local (the sub-base was under-built from day one); an old tarmac or concrete surface is cracked across its whole area; ponding is general because the falls were never right; or the driveway pre-dates the drainage rules and sheds water onto the highway. In those cases we'll quote the honest number for doing it once, properly.
Either way the assessment visit is free, and the advice is the same advice we'd give a neighbour.
The 5 m² repair rule
Planning treats repair generously: you can repair or replace up to 5 m² of existing hard surfacing with any material, and like-for-like repair of a larger existing driveway is fine too. The permeability rules bite when you enlarge the surfaced area or resurface wholesale with an impermeable material — at which point the over-5 m² permeable-or-drained requirement applies. If your repair is drifting toward that line, we'll flag it before it becomes a problem. The full rules are in our planning permission guide.
Fix the cause, not the symptom
Most driveway failure in this area is water: a blocked or absent soakaway, falls running the wrong way, clay ground pumping fines up through a membrane-less base. A repair that re-lays the surface without answering where the water goes is a repair you'll buy twice.
What we repair
Edges, kerbs & thresholds
Loose soldier courses and creeping edges re-set on proper concrete haunching; threshold aprons rebuilt where they've broken up at the road.
Drainage remedials
Ponding diagnosed and fixed: channel drains cleared or added, falls corrected, soakaways rodded, rebuilt or newly installed and sized to your ground.
Resin overlays
A sound but ugly concrete or tarmac base can take a UV-stable resin bound overlay — a new driveway's appearance without excavation cost. We test the base first and say no when it isn't a candidate.
Gravel renovation
Thin, rutted or weed-blown gravel re-graded, topped up with matching stone, and — where the drive deserves it — retro-fitted with stabilisation grids and proper edging.
Pothole & patch repairs
Tarmac potholes cut back and hot-filled, concrete spalls repaired — tidy, load-bearing patches while a surface sees out its remaining years.
Early warning signs worth acting on
Driveways fail on a schedule, and the early entries on it are cheap. The pattern we see on assessment visits, in the order it usually unfolds:
- Joints emptying. Sand washes or gets vacuumed out of block joints over the years. Empty joints mean the interlock is gone — the blocks now carry loads individually instead of as a surface. Fix: a re-sand, at pocket-money cost.
- The first rocking block. Usually at the wheel line or threshold. One rocking block grinds its laying course to dust and recruits its neighbours within a season or two.
- Edges on the move. A soldier course leaning toward the lawn means the haunching has failed; the field follows it outward from there.
- Ponding that lingers. Water standing an hour after rain has stopped is a map of your problem — settlement, a silted drain, or failed falls — drawn for free after every shower.
- Gravel thinning on the wheel lines. Bald tracks with ridges alongside mean the stone is migrating; a grid retrofit costs far less than repeated top-ups.
The £100 stage and the £5,000 stage
Almost every big repair we quote was a small repair two or three winters earlier. Water gets into an open joint, frost expands it, the base softens, the surface follows. Catching a driveway at the re-sand-and-reset stage rather than the rebuild stage is the highest-return maintenance most homeowners never do — which is why our assessment visits are free and our smallest call-out is priced to make early intervention easy.
If you're not sure which stage yours is at, send us a photo after the next rain. The water will have done the diagnosis for you.
What repairs cost
| Repair | Typical range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Block paving re-sand & seal | £8–£14 / m² | Clean, kiln-dried joint sand, optional sealer; whole-driveway refresh |
| Sunken area lifted & re-laid | £90–£140 / m² | Existing blocks reused; base rebuilt and compacted — priced on the affected area only |
| Edge course re-set | £40–£70 / lin m | Re-bedded on concrete haunching |
| New soakaway / channel drain | £300–£900 (item) | Sized on inspection; clay ground needs larger provision than chalk |
| Resin bound overlay (sound base) | £70–£90 / m² | Preparation, priming, UV-stable resin bound surface |
| Minimum call-out works | from £250 | Small patches and single-fault repairs |
Every repair quotation states what we found, what we'll do about it, and — where relevant — what we'd expect the remaining life of the surrounding surface to be, so you can weigh repair against replacement with real numbers.
How a repair visit works
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Assessment
We look below the symptom: base condition, falls, joints, edges and where the water actually goes. You get a plain-English diagnosis on the spot.
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Repair-or-replace advice
An itemised repair quotation — and if we think repair is throwing good money after bad, we say so and show you the replacement number alongside it.
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The work
Most repairs are done in a day or two. Materials matched to the existing surface; the cause (usually drainage) fixed in the same visit.
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Aftercare
Written guidance on keeping the repair sound — jointing, sealing intervals, drainage housekeeping — plus a workmanship guarantee on the repaired areas.
Repair questions, answered
My block paving has sunk where cars turn — can it be saved?
Usually, yes. Local settlement under turning wheels means the base has compacted or migrated in that area; we lift the blocks, rebuild and compact the base, and re-lay the same blocks. If sinking is appearing across the whole driveway, that's an under-built sub-base and we'll be honest that re-laying patches only chases the problem around.
Do I need planning permission to repair my driveway?
No — like-for-like repair is outside the planning rules, and you can repair or replace up to 5 m² with any material. Permission only becomes a question when you enlarge the surfaced area or resurface entirely with an impermeable material, and on Article 4 or conservation-area streets where frontage changes are more tightly controlled. We flag it if your job touches any of those lines.
Why does water pond on my driveway after rain?
One of three causes, in descending order of likelihood around here: a soakaway or channel drain that's silted up (ten minutes' diagnosis, modest fix); settlement that's created a low spot (re-lay the affected area); or falls that were built wrong from the start (a bigger conversation). The assessment visit tells you which you have before anyone quotes anything. How driveway drainage should work is covered in our SuDS drainage guide.
Can you resurface over my old concrete drive instead of digging it up?
If the slab is sound — no rocking sections, no active cracks, somewhere legitimate for water to go — a resin bound overlay gives you a new surface at roughly half the full build-up cost. We test before we promise: an overlay inherits every fault in the base beneath it, which is why we refuse the marginal ones.
Is re-sanding and sealing actually worth it?
On structurally sound block paving, it's the best value work we do: joints refilled with kiln-dried sand restore the interlock (loose joints are how blocks start rocking and edges start creeping), and a quality sealer slows weeds and staining. It's maintenance that prevents the £100-per-m² problems, at under £15 per m².
Send a photo, get a diagnosis
Send a photo and a postcode, or book the free assessment — you'll get a diagnosis and an honest recommendation either way.