Upminster, RM14 - covering Hornchurch, Romford and the whole of Havering
Ilford grew from a village of 1,724 people in 1801 to a borough of more than 184,000 by 1951, and nearly every one of those decades left a different kind of house behind it. That matters to us, because a late Victorian terrace off Cranbrook Road, a 1920s semi in Seven Kings and a Becontree cottage on the Goodmayes side each want a different approach to the front. We travel up from Corbets Tey Road in Upminster, around half an hour by the A12 or A13, to dig out, build the sub-base and lay resin bound, block paving, tarmac or gravel. Every guide price includes the groundwork and the edging. Ring 01708 209015 and we will book a free visit.
We reply the same working day, usually within the hour.
The railway reached Ilford in 1839 and the town has been filling up ever since. Around Valentines Park and along Cranbrook Road the stock is late Victorian and Edwardian terracing, bay-fronted with a short tiled path to the door. Nobody who built them owned a car. Seven Kings, Goodmayes and Newbury Park came next with 1920s and 30s semis and a slightly wider frontage. To the south, 2,500 houses of the London County Council's Becontree estate fell inside Ilford's boundary from 1921 and added 11,600 people within five years, so the Loxford and Goodmayes fringe has cottage-estate terraces with generous gardens. Closer to the station and the High Road the picture changes again: apartment blocks on former commercial land, where a driveway is the freeholder's decision rather than yours. We work on all of it except the flats, which fall under different permitted development rules.
Underneath, Ilford has one of the more interesting grounds in east London. The only complete mammoth skull found in Britain came out of Uphall Pit in the 1860s, close to where Uphall Road now runs, lying in brickearth within the Taplow Gravel of an older Thames. That same brickearth over gravel is what a trial hole finds on a great many Ilford fronts: a fine silty layer that holds water through a wet winter, then free-draining gravel below it. The sub-base has to get through the silt and bear on the gravel, which is why we specify depth after digging rather than before. Planning sits with Redbridge Council. Drives over five square metres have needed to be permeable or drain to a permeable area since the 2008 rule change, and Redbridge adds a condition of its own on dropped kerbs: no loose gravel where a crossing is being built.
Local
Upminster Based
Hornchurch, Upminster and across Havering
6
Surface Types
Resin to gravel, one crew for all of it
Free
Site Visits & Quotes
Written, itemised and fixed
Written
Guarantee
Handed over on paper at the final walk-round
From £80/m²
Smooth, porous resin and stone over a properly built base. The surface most Emerson Park and Upminster enquiries ask about first.
Learn more about Resin Bound Driveways
From £75/m²
Clay or concrete pavers in herringbone, stretcher or basketweave, machine-cut to the edges and held in a concrete haunch.
Learn more about Block Paving Driveways
From £55/m²
Two-course hot-rolled tarmac with a proper binder underneath, framed in block or kerb. The best value on a long drive.
Learn more about Tarmac Driveways
From £45/m²
Stabilised gravel on a honeycomb grid so it stays put, drains freely and suits the bigger plots around Emerson Park and Cranham.
Learn more about Gravel Driveways
From £90/m²
Porcelain, sandstone and limestone patios on a full mortar bed with falls, drainage, steps and walls designed in from the start.
Learn more about Patios & Paving
From £250
Sunken block relaid, tarmac patched or resurfaced, edges rebuilt and drainage sorted when a full replacement is not needed.
Learn more about Driveway Repairs
"Nearly every Ilford terrace we dig out near Valentines Park turns up a Victorian tiled path under the concrete, and about one owner in three asks us to save a strip of it."
Based on enquiries and jobs handled by Hornchurch & Upminster Driveways.
Most guarantees in this trade cover the surface, because the surface is the easy bit. Ours is written around the structure underneath, which is where a driveway on Havering's London clay either holds or does not. We put the excavation depth, the compacted MOT Type 1 thickness, the concrete haunch behind every edge and the drainage route on the quote, and we guarantee that build. If the surface sinks, spreads or ponds because any of that was not done right, we come back and fix it at our cost.
In
Writing, before we start
The guarantee terms go on the quote, not on a leaflet after the job
0
Overlays on a bad base
We will not lay a new surface over a base that has already failed, however cheap it would make the quote
Steps three, four and five are the ones nobody photographs and the ones that decide whether the drive is still level in fifteen years.
We come out, measure, and look at what is under the existing surface. On the clay that sits beneath most of Ilford that is where the decisions get made, not on the phone.
Dig depth, sub-base thickness, edge detail, drainage and the surface, each with its own line and a fixed total. The figure on the quote is the figure on the invoice.
Whatever is there now is broken out and taken away in full. We excavate to the depth the ground needs, lay a geotextile on soft clay and compact MOT Type 1 in two layers with a plate or roller.
Kerbs, block soldier courses or aluminium trims are bedded on concrete and haunched behind before anything else is laid, so the finished surface has something to push against.
Linear channels, gullies and soakaways go in now, with the falls set so rain leaves the surface and stays inside your boundary as the permitted development rules require.
Screeded sand and machine-cut block, hot-rolled tarmac, hand-trowelled resin or compacted gravel in its grid, laid by the same crew that built the base.
We walk the job with you, sand in or seal as the surface needs, take every scrap of waste away and hand over the written guarantee before the van leaves.
Not sure which surface suits the house? The cost guide compares all six side by side, and the site visit is free either way.
Resin needs a day before you walk on it and three before you park on it, so here are three good reasons to be out of the house.
01
A Grade II listed house of 1696 inside Valentines Park, restored and reopened in 2009, with free entry to the rooms and walled gardens and a cafe for the afternoon.
Learn more about Valentines Mansion & Gardens on Google Maps02
Ilford's civic theatre on Oakfield Road opened in January 1975 and still runs a full programme of drama, musicals and local productions a short walk from the station.
Learn more about Kenneth More Theatre on Google Maps03
Former gravel pits on the northern edge of Redbridge turned into a 38 acre sailing and angling lake with golf courses, a boulder park and grassland - the borough's largest country park.
Learn more about Fairlop Waters Country Park on Google MapsWe are on Corbets Tey Road in Upminster, so Ilford is a short drive for a site visit. Visits are free and usually within a few days of your call.
We would rather show you a driveway than a star rating.
Customer reviews are being collected and will appear here as they come in. In the meantime, when we come out to quote in Ilford, ask to see photos of recent jobs on houses like yours - and ask the other firms quoting the same question. A finished drive two streets away tells you more than a testimonial ever will.
For Ilford we work from the same guide prices as everywhere else: gravel £45 to £70 per square metre, tarmac £55 to £80, block paving £75 to £115, resin bound £80 to £120, patios £90 to £150 and repairs from £250. Excavation, sub-base, edging and surface are included in each. The local variable is the brickearth. Where the trial hole shows a deep silty layer we dig further and bring in more Type 1, which adds a modest amount; where gravel is near the surface the price sits at the lower end of the band.
What moves the price up or down →| Surface | Guide price |
|---|---|
| Resin Bound Driveways | £80 to £120 per m² |
| Block Paving Driveways | £75 to £115 per m² |
| Tarmac Driveways | £55 to £80 per m² |
| Gravel Driveways | £45 to £70 per m² |
| Patios & Paving | £90 to £150 per m² |
| Driveway Repairs | £250 to £2,500 per job |
The test is where the rainwater goes, not how big the drive is. The permitted development rule that came in on 1 October 2008 says a front surface of more than five square metres needs planning permission unless it is permeable or the rainwater is directed to a permeable area - a lawn, a border or a soakaway. Resin bound, permeable block paving and gravel all qualify. Flats and maisonettes do not get the same freedom, and Redbridge Council asks for permission where the drive needs a crossing onto a classified road or the house is in a conservation area.
You apply to Redbridge Council online and pay a non-refundable £454 application and inspection fee; if approved there is a £376 legal agreement and the council's own contractor builds the crossing, on a timescale of at least twelve weeks. Nobody else is allowed to cut the kerb. The council also insists the parking area is permeable and refuses loose gravel, which is why most Ilford crossings end up with resin bound or permeable block paving behind them.
Only when it is ignored. Brickearth is the fine silty deposit the Victorian brickfields dug for, and it still sits over the gravel under much of Ilford - the mammoth skull at Uphall Pit came out of it. It holds water after a wet spell and can soften, so a sub-base that stops in the silt will settle. We open a trial hole on the visit, dig through to the gravel where it is close, and compact a deeper Type 1 base where it is not.
Yes. The 2,500 Becontree houses inside Ilford's old boundary were built from 1921 with front gardens meant for roses rather than cars, so the ground has never been compacted. We treat that as a full build: dig out to firm ground, bring in and compact the sub-base in layers, set a solid edge and only then lay the surface. Done that way a cottage-estate drive lasts as well as any other.
We will come up from Upminster, open a trial hole, check whether the kerb needs dropping and leave you a written quote with the sub-base spelled out. Call 01708 209015 or use the form.