Longevity of new driveway/patio materials

[fairplay]

Next Spring I am planning on a new front hardstanding for two small cars, replacement of the side concrete"driveway" (now no longer wide enough for a car so just decorative and foot fall) and a rear patio. There is plenty of info out there on all of the different materials and techniques but very little about what these materials look like after a few years and the easiest/cheapest to repair and maintain. A quick walk down my road shows that most old block paving looks appalling, faded grey or red, dull and usually grass growing in the gaps. Some of the others with slabs don't look great either but I'm not really sure of the age. So the question is which materials stay closest to their new appearance with time and can be repaired/maintained easily?

 

[Notch7]

I walk my dog around our village, I see plenty of driveways being done. Ive noticed after a couple of years the block paving always seems to fade and they all end up looking rather similar in colour, despite starting out red, pink, yellow, grey etc. These are the brick pavers, marshalls type.

The cobble shaped ones seem better

 

[JohnD]

I've had a hoggin drive and garden paths in a former family house that lasted over a hundred years and was sound. I trenched it for a water pipe and relaid the old material. I can see it would have been better raked and rolled every twenty or fifty years than attempts to renovate it with pea shingle on the top.

Where I am now I have pavers on MoT. you can't expect to keep the colour. I've had neighbours jetwash theirs, and it washes out the sand.

Wet-And-Forget kills moss, and weedkiller keeps it looking pretty clean.

 

[fairplay]

Done a lot of research and every trader/supplier seems to contradict each other.