Many cities and towns are actively engaging in slow roads and walkways, relaxation areas and green spaces and parks to provide people with pleasant and accessible environments and spaces to relax. Thanks to these wonderful initiatives, in our busy lives we find nice places to escape from the daily grind, enjoy a moment with family and friends, or on our own, nature and weather.

To make these fun zones accessible to a wide audience, we can work with paths made of semi-paved surfaces. At Ghent Aggregates you can find a lot of great products to build permeable semi-paving as a contractor or city or municipality. Various municipalities and provincial authorities have already used our materials.

This project shows some realizations in Evergem where a large contractor recently constructed a complete park. The footpaths are constructed with porphyry 0/4 and porphyry 0/6. This porphyry is a local Belgian product. It allows you to build an excellent semi-paved surface with very low CO2 emissions that can be walked on, can be used as a bicycle path and is even accessible for wheelchairs or people with reduced mobility. The second big advantage is that in case of repairs it is easy to work with the same product and afterwards there will be no visual difference as with asphalt or concrete. The pavement can be applied with a finisher. The semi-paving retains a natural appearance. The photos were taken more than 1 year after construction.

Semi-paving is always constructed from sand and fine crushed stone in the same colors. Usually we use coarse 0/4 or 0/5 crushed sand, or even 0/6 to 0/15. There will always be some sand fraction in the mixture. Sometimes it can be supplemented by natural mineral binders or with cement. For this we refer to some of our customers. Colors and base materials can always be chosen and ordered from Ghent Aggregates. Installation is done by specialized contractors with the right equipment to guarantee the quality of the final product.

Major advantages of semi-paving:

• Low maintenance and installation costs.
• Easy 100% recycling and recovery
• Environmentally friendly
• Permeable
• Natural look