I use Bradshaws or Pondkeeper for liners. Both are usually very competitive. GCs will alwasys be expensive. I usually just go for the poly ones with a 25 yr guarantee. You often get holes from wildlife going in and out, so that's why I've never bothered with butyl.
We made a largish pond 5 years ago (approx 10m x 6m) and used a Bradshaws liner, the one with a 25 year guarantee. It's nice and lightweight. We would never have managed to get butyl into place with that size and weight. So far the Bradshaws has been ok. As @Fairygirl points out wildlife can damage any liner and with deer here that was another reason we didn't want to use a very expensive one.
Based in Sussex, I garden to encourage as many birds to my garden as possible.
@Fairygirl went with the 40yr flexiliner from pondkeeper, got the premium underlay as there’s glass all over in the soil (although surprisingly little where I dug the pond). Thank you fairygirl hopefully it’ll come before the weekend!
When I built my small pond in I used several layers of newspaper followed by carpet underlay before putting in the butyl liner. That was 20 years ago and so far no problems. My soil is very hard, compacted shale with lots of stones in it so I needed to make sure the liner was protected.
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My soil is very hard, compacted shale with lots of stones in it so I needed to make sure the liner was protected.