07365 022872
info@terrabase paving.co.uk
07365 022872
info@terrabase paving.co.uk
On all work undertaken
Pay on completion
Quality Craftmanship Guaranteed
With No Strings Attached
Terrabase Paving installs block-paved driveways across Royal Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding areas. Our high-quality block paving driveway installations are perfectly suited for homeowners who want a driveway that drains well after heavy rain and enhances the home’s aesthetic appeal.
Block paving offers homeowners more customisability options than almost any other driveway type. We offer a wide mix of colour and style options thanks to our wide supplier network, including brands such as Marshalls, Tobermore, Brett and Bradstone.
Some of the colour options we offer include soft buff and silver grey, through to charcoal and brindle red. We also offer a variety of patterns, including herringbone, stretcher bond and basketweave. Where surface water is a problem, permeable blocks can be laid so rain soaks away through the joints instead of running off.
Every job starts with a free visit to the property. At the visit, we assess the ground, drainage, and access, then price the work on the spot. Our quotes include excavation, waste removal, sub-base, drainage, edging and laying the blocks themselves.
We also don’t take any upfront deposits, so you only pay when you’re happy with the job. There’s also a super generous five-year guarantee on craftsmanship and materials, so you’re completely protected for years to come.
To get a price for your driveway, send us your enquiry via the on-page enquiry form, or drop us a call or an email, and we’ll get back to you the same day!
Block Paved driveways are a fan favourite in Tunbridge Wells. Here are just some of the benefits block paving offers:
Blocks laid in herringbone lock into each other, so the surface spreads the weight of a car instead of cracking under it. This ensures block-paved driveways are highly resilient and can support the load of several vehicles.
If a block gets stained or a pipe under the drive needs to be dug up, you can simply lift that section and relay new blocks. No need to get the entire driveway replaced.
We offer a wide range of colours and styles, allowing you to customise your driveway to your taste and property style.
Permeable blocks over a permeable sub-base allow rainwater to soak away on the property, which helps reduce standing water and comply with front garden rules.
Any company quoting a block paving price without seeing your drive is leaving the price down to guesswork. Instead, we take the time to visit your property to assess your requirements and provide you with a fixed quote you can rely on. Here are just some of the factors that will determine the amount we quote you:
✅ The size of the driveway
✅ How deep we have to dig and how much comes out
✅ Access for machinery and for waste removal
✅ Drainage work: falls, channel drains, permeable build-up
✅ Which blocks you choose
✅ Edgings, kerbs, steps and slopes
Our quotes cover every part of the installation including excavation, waste removal, sub-base, drainage, edging and blocks. The price is fixed. Nothing is payable until the driveway is finished.
Working with Terrabase Paving is super stress-free. Here’s a completely transparent process of what to expect from initial enquiry through to sign-off:
Usually within one to two working days of your enquiry. We measure up, check the ground and talk through blocks, patterns and drainage.
You’ll get a quote, turnaround estimate, and availability window immediately after we assess the property.
If you’re happy to go ahead, we’ll excavate, sub-base, lay edgings, lay the course, blocks, cutting, jointing and compact. Most driveways take three to five days depending on size.
You’ll have the chance to review the installation before sign-off to ensure you’re happy with the job before we leave. From there, our five-year guarantee covers our workmanship and the materials we supply.
Tunbridge Wells sits on the northern edge of the High Weald, and the sandstone under the town carries its name: the Tunbridge Wells Sand Formation, which lies above Wadhurst Clay.
What that means on the ground is that conditions change from road to road. Because of this dynamic, we dig test areas on the day of the survey and set the depth from what is actually under your driveway, usually somewhere between 200mm and 250mm below the finished level, and deeper where the ground is soft or the drive has to carry a heavy vehicle.
Another issue we commonly face with Tunbridge Wells properties is that the town is built on hills and as a result plenty of driveways fall towards the house rather than away from it. As a consequence of this dynamic, water ends up at the front door after a storm.
For these types of properties, we set the falls carefully and add a channel drain across the threshold, or lay a permeable build-up so water drains through the surface.
Thanks to our vast experience serving Tunbridge Wells households, we understand the specific challenges the area faces with driveway installations and ensure they are managed and mitigated professionally so they don’t cause problems down the line.
Take a look at some recent block-paved driveway projects we have completed across Tunbridge Wells and the surrounding areas.
No dodgy or inexperienced subcontractors carrying out the work.
Installing resin bound driveways for Kent homeowners.
Covering workmanship and materials.
To price up the job and offer advice if required.
Bespoke solutions tailored to your individual needs.
All three are good surfaces when they are laid properly.
Block paving suits you if you want pattern, colour and border detail, or if you have a period property where a single seamless surface would look wrong. Its biggest practical advantage is that individual blocks can be lifted and relaid, so damage and future access do not mean starting again.
Resin bound gives a smooth, seamless finish and is permeable as standard, which usually makes drainage simpler. It cannot be repaired invisibly in the same way.
Tarmac is the most cost-effective option over larger areas and is quick to lay, but it offers the least design flexibility and needs separate drainage provision.
For most homes, no. The biggest variable that affects whether you’ll need planning permission is drainage.
Since 2008, planning permission has been required for a new or replacement front driveway over five square metres that uses a traditional impermeable surface and where the rainwater has nowhere to go but the highway. You will not need permission if the surface is permeable, or if run-off is directed to a lawn, border, soakaway or other permeable area within your own property.
We work all of this out at survey stage and tell you which route applies to your property before you commit to anything.
The honest answer is that it depends on the size of the area, how much material is removed from the ground, whether machinery can access it, and whether drainage or edging work is involved. A straightforward single-car drive over a sound existing base is a very different job to a larger drive that requires full excavation, a new soakaway, and new kerbs.
You will get a realistic timescale with your quote rather than a rough guess on the doorstep. If anything on-site changes that figure, you will hear about it from us the same day, not at the end of the week.
Terrabase Paving is a limited company registered in England, company number 12572527, trading since 2020 and built on more than a decade of hands-on experience before that. The work is carried out by our own team rather than subcontracted out to whoever happens to be available that week.
Beyond that, judge us on how we quote. You get a free site survey, an itemised quote detailing excavation depths, materials, drainage, and waste removal, and no request for payment before we start. We also back our service with a five-year guarantee.
All our work comes with a five-year guarantee covering both workmanship and materials. We offer this guarantee across all of our driveway installs.
In practice, that covers the issues that relate to how the driveway was built: settlement or movement caused by the sub-base, failure of the laying course, and defective blocks. Materials supplied through our merchants also carry their own manufacturer’s warranty in addition to ours.
It does not cover damage from factors outside our control, such as vehicles heavier than the driveway was designed for, third parties excavating the surface, movement caused by tree roots or drainage faults elsewhere on the property, or normal weathering and colour settling.
We arrange a licensed waste removal company to take it away and dispose of it correctly, and that cost is built into your quote rather than added at the end.
Block paving is more forgiving than resin or tarmac, so we can work in most British weather. It is one of the reasons it is a sensible choice for work carried out outside the summer months.
What stops us is sustained heavy rain during the excavation and sub-base stages. Saturated ground will not compact properly, and building a base into standing water is how driveways end up sinking two winters later. If that happens, we would rather lose a day than build something that fails.
If the weather moves your dates, you will hear from us. You will be told where we are and when we will be back, rather than left to wonder.
No. We do not take deposits. You pay on completion, once the work is finished and you are happy with it. We accept bank transfer or cash, and you will have an itemised quote before we start so there are no surprises about the final figure.
Yes, and it is one of the genuine advantages of block paving over a seamless surface.
Because the drive is made up of individual blocks locked together by jointing sand rather than a single poured surface, a damaged or sunken area can be lifted, the base underneath corrected, and the same blocks relaid. Done properly, the repair is invisible.
Tunbridge Wells has a number of conservation areas and listed properties across the borough, so it is worth checking before any work starts. Conservation area status does not automatically prevent you from laying a driveway, but it can bring closer scrutiny, particularly where the work affects an established front boundary wall, railings, historic paving, or the character of the street.
Removing a front wall or creating a new access is far more likely to require permission than resurfacing an existing drive. If the property itself is listed, listed building consent may be required separately. Tunbridge Wells Borough Council is the planning authority for the borough, and neighbouring areas such as Sevenoaks and Tonbridge and Malling have their own. We will raise it in the survey if we think your property falls into this category, and we always recommend confirming with the council before committing.
A tidy, well-laid driveway is one of the first things a buyer sees, and off-street parking is a genuine selling point in and around Tunbridge Wells where on-street space is limited. However, we would be cautious about anyone quoting you a percentage. How much value a driveway adds depends on your property, your street and whether you had off-street parking to begin with.
Realistically, expect to jet wash it every year or two and top up the kiln-dried sand in the joints afterwards. Washing removes the jointing sand along with the dirt, so the two go together. Cleaning without re-sanding is what leads to loose blocks and weeds taking hold. Beyond that, occasional sweeping and clearing leaves out of the joints in autumn does most of the work.
Some settling of colour is normal. Concrete blocks are pigmented, and pigments lose a little intensity under UV exposure over the first few years before stabilising. Strong reds and buffs show it most. Greys, charcoals and blended ranges hold their appearance better.
You may also notice efflorescence in the first months, a white powdery bloom that looks like fading but is not. It is lime working its way out of the concrete; it weathers off on its own, and it is not a defect or a reason to seal.
Manholes and inspection chambers have to stay accessible. They cannot be paved over or buried. The neat solution is a recessed tray cover: a metal frame infilled with the same blocks used across the rest of the drive, so the cover reads as part of the pattern rather than a grey square in the middle of it. It lifts out whenever access is needed. Where a recessed cover is not practical, we cut the blocks tightly around the existing frame and set the levels so that water runs away from it rather than into it. Either way, covers are set flush to the finished paving level so there is no lip to catch a wheel or a foot.
Tunbridge Wells is our main patch, and we work throughout the town and the villages around it: Southborough, Rusthall, Pembury, Langton Green, Speldhurst, Bidborough, Frant, Groombridge, Penshurst, Chiddingstone, Leigh, Matfield, Brenchley, Goudhurst, Lamberhurst, Hadlow, Hildenborough, Tonbridge and Sevenoaks.
We also take block paving work further into Kent, including West Malling, Kings Hill, Maidstone, Staplehurst, Ashford and Chatham. If your village is not on the list, ask anyway. We cover the whole county and are happy to look at anything within reach.
For a free visit and a written price, use the enquiry form, call 07365 022872 or email info@terrabasepaving.co.uk.
