Tarmac and asphalt are the surfaces asked about most often around Christchurch, and a double drive in tarmac runs from about £3,000 to £5,000. A proper tarmac drive is three layers deep rather than one, and the middle layer is where a cheap quote saves its money. Ask how thick the binder course is going to be before you compare one price against another.

What a driveway costs in Christchurch

The figures below come from independent UK cost guides updated in 2026. Tarmac is listed first because it is the surface this page goes into most deeply.

Swipe the table sideways to see every column.

The cost guides split on tarmac more than on anything else. One works a 50 square metre drive out at £3,000 to £4,500 and another lands nearer £5,500. That spread is mostly the depth of the build, which is why the layers below are worth reading before you accept the cheapest figure in front of you.

What a proper tarmac drive is made of

Tarmac looks like one black surface. It is actually three layers laid over a dug out base, and two of the three are buried where you cannot inspect them.

• Dig out at least 175mm. That is the depth the whole build needs before any material goes back in.
• Sub-base, 100mm minimum. Compacted crushed rock, laid to the falls of the finished drive.
• Binder course, 40mm to 50mm. The structural layer, made with 20mm aggregate. Fifty is the number to aim for. This is the layer that gets thinned when a price has to come down.
• Surface course, 20mm to 25mm rolled. The fine top layer, made with 6mm or 10mm stone. On its own it carries nothing.
• Edgings are not optional. Tarmac has no strength at a free edge. Without a kerb or an edging holding it, the edges crumble away and the drive shrinks from the outside in.
• Aim for a fall of 1:40 to 1:60. One in eighty is the shallowest that will move water at all. Flatter than that and it stands on the surface.

Getting the levels right

A drive laid at the wrong height can damage the house, whatever the surface is made of. These are the figures a builder works to. They matter most when a new surface is going over an old one, because that raises the level every time.

• At least 150mm below the damp proof course. The finished surface has to sit that far below the DPC, with the level access into the house the only exception. A drive laid up over the DPC lets damp into the wall.
• Whatever the fall, it runs away from the house. The accepted limits are 1:80 at the shallowest and 1:12 at the steepest. Steeper than one in twelve is hard to walk up and hard to push a wheelchair up.
• On a slope, a channel two metres out. Where the ground runs towards the house, a drainage channel goes at least two metres away from it, with the ground between still falling away from the wall.
• A level threshold needs a drained channel. If the door has a flush entrance with no step, there has to be a channel across it going to a proper outfall.

What is under your street

Christchurch sits where the Stour and the Avon meet before they reach Christchurch Bay. The British Geological Survey puts about half of this map sheet under drift deposits, and around Christchurch those deposits are mostly river terrace sand and gravel left by the two rivers.

That gives Christchurch two very different types of ground, sometimes within a few streets of each other.

• Terrace gravel drains well. On the higher ground away from the rivers, the sand and gravel take water readily, so a soakaway is usually a realistic option and a permeable drive works as intended.
• Valley floor alluvium holds water. The low ground along the Stour and the Avon, and the harbour edge at Stanpit and Fisherman’s Bank, is soft river silt. It compresses, so a sub-base laid on it without enough depth settles.
• The water table sits high near the rivers. A soakaway only works if there is somewhere dry for the water to go. Close to the harbour the ground is often wet already, and the soakaway fills instead of emptying.
• Old gravel workings are part of the local ground. The terrace sand and gravel here has been dug commercially, so made ground and backfilled pits turn up in places. A trial hole before quoting is the cheapest way to find out.

The 2025 flood strategy

BCP Council adopted the Christchurch Bay and Harbour Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy in December 2025. It covers the coast from Hengistbury Head to Hurst Spit, all of Christchurch Harbour, and runs up the rivers as far as Tuckton Bridge on the Stour and Knapp Mill on the Avon.

Over the next hundred years, with no further action, it puts around 1,600 properties at risk from erosion and more than 2,200 at risk of coastal flooding.

None of that stops you laying a driveway. It does change one decision.

• Keep the rainwater on your own plot. A drive that sheds water towards the road adds to the surface water everyone else is already adding to. A permeable surface, or a border that takes the run off, deals with it where it lands.
• Ask where the outfall is. If a contractor proposes a drain rather than a soakaway, ask what it connects to. Connecting surface water into a foul drain is not allowed, and putting it right later falls to you.

Eleven conservation areas in Christchurch

Christchurch has eleven conservation areas, out of 48 across the BCP area as a whole. Christchurch Central was designated in 1969, two years after the law that created conservation areas came in.

Avon Buildings, Bramble Lane, Burton, Christchurch Central, Christchurch Hospital, Hurn, Mudeford Quay, Purewell, Stanpit and Fisherman’s Bank, Verno Lane, and Winkton.

• Check your address rather than your town. Boundaries do not follow whole streets, so being in Purewell or Burton does not by itself tell you whether your house is inside the designated area.
• Designation can take permitted development rights away. The rights that normally let you pave a front garden or put up gates can be withdrawn street by street. Check your address with BCP before you plan around the national rules.
• The quay and the older lanes are tight. Around Mudeford Quay and the streets near the Priory, check whether a lorry can get to the front of the house. Where it cannot, materials come in by barrow and the labour goes up.

The boundary maps for all eleven are on BCP’s conservation areas page.

Planning and the dropped kerb

Permeable surfaces sit outside the planning rule whatever their size. Permission is only needed once a solid surface goes over 5m² with nowhere to send its water. The rule is set out in full on our Bournemouth driveways page.

Tarmac is worth a word here, because it is not permeable. A tarmac drive either falls onto a border or a lawn, or it needs permission. Porous asphalt exists and behaves differently, so if a contractor is quoting tarmac, ask which one they mean.

The crossing over the pavement is separate again. It is highway work, BCP charges £130 to assess it, and the process is set out on the Bournemouth driveways page.

Getting quotes in Christchurch

Send the postcode and the area you want covering. Say which surface you are leaning towards, and whether the drive is being replaced or laid from scratch. Those two answers change the price more than anything else on the form.

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Where we cover

All of BH23. Christchurch town, Highcliffe, Mudeford, Stanpit, Purewell, Somerford, Jumpers Common, Burton, Winkton and Hurn.

• BournemouthCheck Now
• PooleCheck Now
• ChristchurchYou are on this page

Costs and ground conditions differ across the three towns. Poole sits on clay, which changes the drainage answer completely, and that is covered on our driveways in Poole page.