Driveways and patios from the Dales to the coast

North Yorkshire is England’s largest county, and the work changes as much as the scenery. In the Vale of York the land is flat and often slow to drain. Around Harrogate and Knaresborough there are large stone villas, wide verges and mature trees. On the coast at Scarborough, Whitby and Filey, salt air and wind off the North Sea are part of every brief, and up in the Dales the stone, the slopes and the frost decide most things.

A lot of the county is protected. The Yorkshire Dales and North York Moors national parks have their own planning authorities, Nidderdale is a National Landscape, and most market towns and many villages have conservation areas. None of that rules out a new drive, but it can affect the materials and sometimes means a planning application. We’ll tell you at the survey whether your property is affected and what the planners are likely to want to see.

In York, City of York Council handles planning and dropped kerbs. Everywhere else it’s North Yorkshire Council, which replaced the county council and the old district councils, including Harrogate, Scarborough, Craven and Selby, in April 2023. Plenty of guidance online still refers to the old councils, so check the date on anything you read about dropped kerbs or front-garden rules.

Long drives, farmhouse yards and loose gravel are common here. Gravel ruts, migrates onto lawns and is hard work with a wheelchair or pushchair. A resin bound driveway keeps the natural look of stone without the loose chippings, and on a long rural drive a tarmac surface with a stone-coloured block edge is hard-wearing and quick to lay. Where a property sits up a narrow lane, we check access for the wagon and plan deliveries before we book a start date.