Driveway surface

[BlackberryandNettle]

I'm planning house renovation and am looking for driveway advice please. It's not a vast area, just enough at front of house for two large cars, plus step up to house/area around front door.

Any recommendations for type/surface?
I was wondering about printed concrete or some type of resin..does anyone have any experience with cost/durability/price of having these? Any photos or tips for colours would be great. I'd prefer something that doesn't sprout weeds or get mouldy or slippery easily.

Also, what type of company sorts this out? I am clueless. Would a builder do it, or landscaper, or are there companies that just do driveways? There is a small lawned area too which we'd like slightly reduced and some roots digging out.

You might need planning permission before anything. If you are digging up a garden and replacing with a non permeable surface above a certain size you will need pp.

I wouldn't use printed concrete seems to me would very slippy in winter.

There are driveway specialists, or landscaping companies. Even if you ring the ‘wrong’ trade, they should be able to direct you. As Chicken said, check the planning aspect.

Thank you, I hadn't even considered planning permission. We want to keep the grassy area but relay a new driveway over the existing one

We have recently had a resin bound drive installed at our house, and they're coming back next month to install around the side and patio as we think it's great!

Loads of colours available and about on par with block paving and other stuff we'd looked at cost-wise. Not a fan of imprinted concrete personally, and have been warned off by a few people as quality can vary hugely apparently.

We used a specialist company called HMS (I think) who came from the Midlands but did a fab job and arranged all the preparation work and stuff too. We were replacing the existing drive and taking away a a small planting 'triangle' to make the drive more accessible and was advised it came under permitted development. Definitely worth checking though.

Thank you Jenga that is very helpful. I like the look of the resin bound driveways. Can I ask - does it look particularly shiny/slippery. Is it at all slippery when wet/cold? Also what did they build the driveway over? We currently have slabs with brick edging. Just wondering whether it would go straight over the top. How much did it cost??

@JengaCupboard

It’s not slippery at all, it was shiny initially but that wears off quite quickly and you just have the texture of the stones. It’s porous so everything pretty much just drains through it, great for washing cars! According to the quote it’s on porous binder tarmac and sub base. We had new edgings because ours were disintegrated but they said you can re-use ones you have if they’re ok? Our drive is about 60 square meters and I think it was about £5k all together?