Landscaping in Leicester, priced in writing before anything starts.
Leicester gardens split between two very different jobs, and the difference is the depth of the plot.
The Victorian and Edwardian villa plots around Stoneygate and Clarendon Park are deep, mature and often heavily planted, and they are among the better gardens to design in the region. The constraint on them is not space but the trees, which are protected by the conservation area designations whether or not a specific order exists. Six weeks written notice to the city council is required before even a heavy prune, and root protection areas extend further than the canopy, which affects where a patio, a base or a retaining wall can go.
On the terraced streets the garden is narrow, walled both sides and frequently reachable only through the house, which is the single largest factor in what a garden there costs to build.
Front boundaries deserve a specific mention in this city. Where an Article 4 direction applies, external alterations are controlled, and on a Victorian frontage the wall, the gate piers and the railings are part of what makes the street. Removing them is not automatically yours to decide.
Front hard surfacing over five square metres needs a permeable material or drainage to a soft area within your boundary, or planning permission. Our landscaping page shows the range of the work, from patios and paths through to full garden rebuilds.
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 Leicester City 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 Leicester street to the next.
Where a machine can reach the garden the job is quicker and cheaper, and on a villa plot with a side gate it usually can. On a terrace every tonne is carried through the house and the price reflects that honestly rather than being discovered later.
Leaf fall on a mature plot should shape the design. Gravel under a heavy canopy becomes a raking job forever, and a gully without a leaf guard blocks every autumn. We design for what the planting actually does.
Levels and retaining structures are designed and drained rather than stacked. Anything holding back a real change in level is a structural element, not a decorative one.
Where a root protection area crosses the footprint you wanted, we redesign around it rather than quietly digging through it and leaving the tree to fail slowly over the following five years.
Part of our wider building work in Leicester.
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.
