Extensions, renovations, roofing and groundworks across Daventry and the surrounding area.
Southfield Construction works in Daventry and the villages around it, straight out along the A45 from us. It is a run we make regularly, so a site visit here is a normal part of the week. The builders in Daventry who come out readily before a job are generally the ones who come back readily afterwards, and we make the run often enough that neither is a favour.
Extensions, renovations, roofing and groundworks on the housing in and around the town. We look after the Building Regulations side of the work, arranging the inspections and seeing the job through to sign off, and you get a price in writing before anything starts.
Four things we commit to on every job, rather than four things we say about ourselves.
Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations. We arrange the West Northamptonshire Council inspections, meet the inspector on site at each stage and see the work through to sign off. We do not make the application itself, and we will tell you what is needed and when.
Free, and you get it before you commit to us. Party walls and skip licences are raised at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
The same people do the groundworks, the brickwork and the fit out. Nobody hands your job to a subcontractor you have never met.
You get a straight answer rather than a padded price. It costs us a job occasionally and saves you a great deal more.
These are the trades we carry out ourselves. Every one leads to a page describing that work in detail.
Footings, brickwork, roof and full fit out
More about this
Patios, paving, decking, fencing and turf
More about thisDaventry is an old market town with a very large modern town wrapped around it, and the two halves need completely different approaches.
The historic core is small, tight and heavily designated. This is where the Article 4 direction applies and where almost every enquiry needs a designation check before anything else happens. The buildings are older, often with solid walls, shallow foundations by modern standards and frontages that the council actively protects.
Around it sits the town that grew from the 1960s onward, when Daventry expanded rapidly under a town expansion scheme and its population multiplied. That housing is the bulk of what we work on: estate built, cavity walled, generally with side access and a garden with room in it. It is predictable stock and the most straightforward to price accurately.
Then there are the villages, and around Daventry they matter more than usual. The wider Daventry area contains 39 conservation areas and 1,531 listed buildings, which is an extraordinary concentration. Braunston, Weedon Bec, Staverton, Everdon, Flore, Kilsby and Welford all have designations of one kind or another, and several of them have been the subject of their own Article 4 directions. A cottage in one of those villages is a different planning proposition from a house on a Daventry estate three miles away, and we treat it as one.
Those are the places we work most often, not the limit of where we go. We cover the town and the surrounding Northamptonshire villages, so if you are not sure whether we reach you, just ask.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Daventry street to the next.
West Northamptonshire Council is the local planning authority. It is a unitary council, so planning, building control and the roads all sit with the same authority, which is simpler than the two-tier arrangement in most of the towns around here.
This is the thing to know about building in Daventry, and it is unusual. An Article 4(1) Direction is in effect over the Daventry Town Centre Conservation Area, and unlike most Article 4 directions, which deal with houses in multiple occupation and never trouble a householder, this one removes permitted development rights for work people ask us about constantly: replacing windows, painting the outside of a property and building a porch.
Read that again if you own a property in the town centre, because it means jobs you would reasonably assume need no permission at all do need it here. Painting your own front elevation is the one that surprises people most. It is not a technicality and it is not unenforced. We check the designation before quoting anything that touches an exterior in the centre of town.
The Daventry area has 39 conservation areas and 8 Article 4 directions in total. Directions have been consulted on for the conservation areas at Everdon, Flore, Kilsby, Little Everdon, Pitsford, Staverton, Weedon and Welford. Each direction is written for the specific features that matter in that particular village, so there is no single rule that covers them all and the local answer has to be looked up rather than assumed.
Outside the designated areas the ordinary rules apply, and on the estate housing that makes up most of the town a single storey rear extension often falls within permitted development. Permitted development is not an exemption from Building Regulations, and a full plans application is still required. We do not make that application, but we arrange and meet the inspections that follow it and we see the work through to sign off.
West Northamptonshire is a unitary authority, which makes the practical side simpler than in Warwickshire or Leicestershire. The council that decides your planning application is also the highway authority, so a skip standing on a public road in Daventry is licensed by the same council. The application is made by the skip company rather than by you or by us, and it needs to be in before the skip is due rather than on the day.
In the historic core the streets are older and tighter than the estates, parking is at a premium and there is often nowhere to stand a skip except the carriageway. That does not stop the work, but it changes the sequence and the price and it needs establishing before the first delivery is booked.
On the housing built from the 1960s onward there is usually a driveway, and where a skip can stand on your own ground no licence is needed at all. In the villages access is usually generous but the lanes are not, so we size the deliveries to what can actually get down them rather than sending an artic and hoping.
We also work across Rugby, Northampton, and Lutterworth.
Send photographs and a rough brief, or call and talk it through. We will tell you if a job is not right for us.
Southfield Construction (Rugby) Ltd, registered in England and Wales, company 14209138.
