A two-car tarmac drive in Bournemouth is about £3,000 to £5,000 laid. Most of Bournemouth sits on sand, which drains far better than the clay inland, and that changes how a tarmac drive should be built and where its water can go. Settle that with the contractor before you agree a price.

Before you commit to tarmac, price the alternatives. Every surface is costed on our driveways in Bournemouth page.

What a tarmac drive costs in Bournemouth

These 2026 figures come from two independent UK cost guides. One car is about 20m² of drive, two cars about 50m². Measure yours and read down.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Per square metre laid that is £60 to £110, the lowest of the solid surfaces. Lifting an old drive and carting it away adds another £30 to £50 a square metre.

Tarmac on Bournemouth’s sandy ground

Bournemouth is built on the Branksome Sand, and sand behaves very differently under tarmac from the clay that dominates most towns. It helps in one way and it catches people out in another.

• The water can soak away here. Sand takes water down through it, so a soakaway is usually a real option and porous tarmac, the open version that lets water through, works as it should. On clay neither would.
• Loose sand has to be compacted hard first. A tarmac drive is only as flat as the ground under it. Laid on sand that has not been dug out and rolled properly, it settles into ruts where the wheels sit within a couple of winters.
• Standard tarmac still sheds its water. Plain tarmac is sealed, so unless it drains to a border or a soakaway, the rules on paving a front garden come into play. Those are set out on our driveways in Bournemouth page.

Tarmac and Bournemouth’s pines

Bournemouth is full of mature pines, and they are the one thing tarmac copes with worst. A tree near the drive is worth thinking about before the tarmac goes down, not after.

• Roots lift and crack tarmac. As roots spread under a solid surface they push it up, and a continuous sheet like tarmac cracks along the line rather than flexing. Block paving rides small movement better.
• Many of these trees are protected. You cannot simply cut a root to solve it. In a conservation area the tree may be protected automatically, with written notice needed before any work, and the full rule is on our driveways in Bournemouth page.
• Set the drive out around the tree. Keeping the dig back from the roots, or choosing a surface that tolerates movement, is usually cheaper than fighting the tree.

What tarmac is made of

The black surface has more than one form, and what sits under it matters more than the name on the quote.

• Tarmac is the everyday name for bitmac. Stone bound with bitumen and rolled hot. Asphalt, including stone mastic asphalt, is a denser mix that costs more and wears longer. The full comparison is on our tarmac driveways page for Christchurch.
• The build is three layers, not one. A dug out base, a structural binder course, and a thin top layer. What each should measure is on our driveways in Christchurch page, and a thin single layer over a shallow base is the first to break up.
• Edges need holding. A tarmac edge with nothing against it breaks off over time, so a kerb or a fixed edging is part of the job, not an extra.

Laying fresh tarmac over an old drive

Plenty of Bournemouth drives are sound old tarmac that can take a new surface over the top, which is the cheapest tarmac job there is.

• The base has to be stable. A drive with cracks where one side has lifted above the other is moving underneath, and a new layer will crack in the same place.
• The height still has to work. Each new layer lifts the surface, and it has to finish below the damp course with the doorway still clear. What height it has to finish at is on the driveways in Christchurch page.

Getting tarmac quotes in Bournemouth

Give the postcode and the size, and tell us if this is a first drive here or a new top over an old one. A tree near the front, or ground that has never been dug, both change the job, so flag them.

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Where we cover

All of Bournemouth, BH1 to BH11, from the town centre out through Winton, Charminster, Boscombe, Southbourne and Kinson.

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