Landscaping in Leamington Spa, priced in writing before anything starts.
Leamington front gardens are a planning matter far more often than gardens elsewhere, because on the spa era streets the front boundary is part of what the conservation area exists to protect.
Railings, gate piers, steps over a lightwell and the low walls that hold them are original features on many of these houses, and they are frequently the most visible thing about the street. Removing or replacing them is not a free choice, and where a house is listed the boundary treatment is usually covered by the listing too. We check before quoting anything at the front of a spa era property.
Lightwells bring a practical problem of their own. They collect water, they are often drained by a single gully installed in the nineteenth century, and when that blocks the water goes into the lower ground floor. A good deal of what gets diagnosed as rising damp in this town is a blocked lightwell drain. Clearing and rebuilding that properly is unglamorous work that solves more problems than a new patio ever will.
The national rule on front hard surfacing applies here as everywhere: more than five square metres needs a permeable material or drainage to a soft area inside your own boundary, or it needs planning permission. In a conservation area expect further control on top.
Rear gardens on the terraces are narrow, walled and reachable only through the house. Our landscaping page shows the range of the work.
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 Warwick District 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.
Process, specification and what moves the price are set out on our landscaping page.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Leamington Spa street to the next.
Before any tree comes out, check whether it is protected. Every tree in a conservation area is protected whether or not a specific order exists, which means six weeks written notice to the district before even a heavy prune, and the Leamington conservation areas cover a great deal of mature planting. Removing a protected tree is a criminal offence.
Where a garden is reachable only through the building, every tonne is carried. We protect a route through and size deliveries to what can actually be moved, which is why we will not price a Leamington garden from photographs.
Where original railings survive, or the stubs of them do, reinstating to match is usually the right answer and the council will expect it.
Part of our wider building work in Leamington Spa.
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.
