Bournemouth, BH1 to BH11

Resin Driveways in Bournemouth

Resin quotes for one drive can sit thousands apart. Send your Bournemouth postcode and a rough size, and compare the local prices in one place.

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A resin bound drive for two cars in Bournemouth usually lands between £4,500 and £7,000. Bournemouth’s sandy ground drains well, which is what lets a fully permeable resin drive work as it should here and keeps most of these jobs clear of planning permission. That only holds if the layers under the resin drain too, so ask what the base is before you compare a price.

Resin is one option of several. See it priced against the other surfaces on our driveways in Bournemouth page.

What a resin drive costs in Bournemouth

Resin bound has two parts to its price: the surface by the square metre, and whatever the ground below needs first. Measure the drive and read down.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

Size of drive Roughly Price at £90 to £140 per m² Days on site
One car 20m² £1,800 to £2,800 1 to 2
Two cars side by side 50m² £4,500 to £7,000 2 to 3
Long drive or drive and path 75m² £6,750 to £10,500 3 to 4

The prices above assume the base is already sound. Where an old drive has to be dug out first, that is another £30 to £50 a square metre for removal, plus the new base on top.

Resin on Bournemouth’s sand

Bournemouth sits on the Branksome Sand, and that ground suits resin better than almost anywhere. Sand lets water down through it, so the one thing resin needs to earn its permeable name, somewhere for the water to go, is already there.

  • A fully permeable build works here. Resin laid over an open base on sandy ground lets rain pass straight through and away. That keeps the drive within permitted development at any size, which is the planning point covered on our driveways in Bournemouth page.
  • The whole build has to drain, not just the top. Resin over solid concrete or tarmac only drains at the surface, then the water runs sideways. What makes a resin drive permeable end to end is on our resin driveways in Poole page.
  • The ground still varies plot to plot. There are clay beds within the sand, so drainage is not identical across every Bournemouth street. A contractor who checks the ground before quoting is pricing your drive, not an average one.

Resin or block paving

Resin and block paving are the two most asked about here, and they suit different owners. This is how they line up on the things that matter over the years.

  • Resin is smooth and laid in one piece. One continuous surface, no joints, so nothing to weed and no sand to brush back in. Block paving has joints, and joints grow weeds and need re-sanding.
  • Block paving is the easier repair. A sunk or stained block lifts out and a new one goes in. A resin patch has to be cut out and refilled, and matching a weathered drive exactly is the hard part.
  • Both can be permeable. Resin bound is permeable through the whole build. Block paving is permeable only if it is laid with the wider permeable joints and the right base, which is set out on our block paving page.
  • Price overlaps. Resin bound runs £90 to £140 a square metre laid, block paving £90 to £150. The choice is rarely about price, it is about the smooth unbroken look against the repairable one.

Choosing the colour and the stone

A resin drive is natural stone held in a clear binder, so the colour you see is the stone itself. The blend is worth taking time over, because it is the part you look at every day.

  • Pick it against the house, not on its own. A blend that looks right on a sample board can fight the brick or render of the house. Ask to see the boards held against your own frontage.
  • Mixed blends stay looking clean. Two or three tones together disguise leaf fall and tyre marks that a single flat colour would show. Buff, gold, grey and charcoal are the usual starting points.
  • A border lifts a plain drive. A charcoal edge around a buff drive, or a soldier course of blocks, frames it and hides where the resin meets the wall.
  • The binder decides whether the colour lasts. A UV stable resin holds the colour in sun, and a cheaper one drifts yellow over a few years. That difference, which matters on Bournemouth’s south facing frontages, is explained on our resin driveways in Poole page.

Resin over a tired old drive

A lot of Bournemouth drives are old concrete or tarmac that is cracked on top but still solid underneath. Resin is often the tidy way to cover one without digging the whole thing out.

  • A sound base can be surfaced over. Stable concrete or tarmac with no real movement takes a resin layer straight over the top, which is the cheapest start resin has.
  • A moving base has to come out. Where the old surface has cracks with one side lifted above the other, resin laid over it splits in the same place. How to tell a sound base from a moving one, and the base build resin needs, are on our resin driveways in Poole page.

Getting resin quotes in Bournemouth

Send the postcode and rough size, and tell us what the drive is now. Sound old tarmac and cracked concrete price very differently, so that detail is the useful one.

Where we cover

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