What a driveway costs around Hastings
Nobody can price a driveway from a postcode, but everybody deserves a number to think with. These are indicative installed rates for Hastings and within 25 miles, what typical sizes come out at, and — more usefully — the list of things that actually move the figure up or down.
By surface
Gravel
from £85/m²
Cheapest to lay, permeable by default, needs edging and topping up.
Tarmac
from £120/m²
Fast to install over a sound base. Softens in heat, edges are the weak point.
Imprinted concrete
from £105/m²
One continuous slab, patterned and sealed. Cheap to lay, hard to repair.
Block paving
from £185/m²
Highest material handling, but liftable and repairable for decades.
By size, in block paving
Single car, ~25m²
from £4,650
Two cars, ~50m²
from £9,250
Wide frontage, ~80m²
from £14,800
Guide bands only, for a full excavation and rebuild with drainage. A written fixed price after a site visit is the only number worth planning around.
What moves the price
Dropped kerb
A separate cost: East Sussex Highways' own fees, plus construction by one of their approved contractors.
Excavation depth
Soft ground means digging deeper and importing more stone. This is often the single biggest variable.
Spoil removal
Priced by the tonne and by tip gate fees. A deep dig on a narrow frontage generates a lot of muck away.
Drainage
Linear channels, a properly sized soakaway or an open-graded permeable build-up. Not optional, frequently omitted from cheap quotes.
Access
No side access, a shared drive or a narrow lane means barrowing. Labour hours, not materials.
Levels and retaining
Sloping frontages need steps, retaining or regrading before any paving is laid.
EV charger
Ducting laid under the drive at build stage costs very little. Retro-fitting means cutting the finished surface.
The ground is part of the price
Every plot is different. Clay holds water and moves with the seasons; free-draining ground can hide soft spots. That changes how deep we dig, how much stone goes in and where the water goes. We check it on the site visit before we price. Anyone quoting the same build-up for every drive without looking is guessing.
Questions people actually ask
How much does a driveway cost around Hastings?
As a guide, a two-car block paved driveway of around 50m² starts at £9,250 installed, with gravel from £85/m², tarmac from £120/m², imprinted concrete from £105/m² and block paving from £185/m². Those are indicative rates for Hastings and within 25 miles — the real figure depends on how deep we have to dig and where the water goes.
Why do driveway quotes vary so much for the same job?
Because most of the price is buried. Two quotes can both say block paving while one assumes a 150mm sub-base, geotextile, haunched edges and a channel drain, and the other assumes 75mm of scalpings straight onto clay. Ask every quote for the excavation depth, the sub-base material and depth, the edge restraint detail and the drainage strategy in writing. The differences will explain themselves.
Does the dropped kerb cost extra?
Yes. East Sussex Highways charges its own application and licence fees (published on its website), and the crossing is built and priced by one of its approved contractors. Neither is included in a per-square-metre driveway rate.
Is it cheaper to lay a new driveway over the old one?
It is cheaper on the day and expensive later. Overlaying keeps whatever caused the old surface to fail, raises the finished level — often too close to the damp proof course — and gives the new surface a moving base. We would rather dig it out and price it honestly.
Do you charge for a quote?
No. We come out and survey the job: we measure properly, check levels and where the water goes, check what planning rules apply, and discuss access. Then we give you a written fixed price with the build-up specified. That's why the number we write down is fixed rather than "subject to survey": by the time we write it, we know what the job needs.
Where we sit on those numbers
At the upper end of them, and deliberately. We price one specification — full-depth compacted sub-base, membrane, haunched edges, drainage designed rather than hoped for — fix the figure before we start, and photograph the build. We don't quote low and find the difference later, and we don't come down on a price by taking something out of the ground.
Related
Figures on this page are indicative guide rates, not a quotation, and council fees are set by the councils and subject to change.
Worth reading
- Why driveways sink, and whose fault it is
Four causes, and how to tell which one you've got from the shape of the failure — plus when a lift and relay fixes it and when the whole drive has to come up.
Includes: how to lift one block and check your own sub-base depth