Extensions, renovations, roofing and groundworks across Lutterworth and the surrounding area.
Southfield Construction is a Rugby building firm, and Lutterworth is the closest town to us. Most weeks there is a van of ours somewhere between the two, so a site visit here does not need planning around. When people here look for builders in Lutterworth we are usually the nearest firm to them rather than the furthest, and that shows in how quickly anything gets looked at.
We work across the town and the villages around it on extensions, renovations, roofing and groundworks. 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 Harborough 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.
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 thisLutterworth is an unusual town to build in, and the reason is the shape of the plots rather than the age of the houses.
The medieval core still follows its burgage layout: narrow frontages onto the street, and long thin plots running a surprising distance back. That is good news and bad news in the same breath. There is often far more depth available for a rear extension than the front of the house suggests. There is also frequently no side access at all, so every barrow of muck and every pack of blocks goes through the house or down a shared entry. We price that in rather than discovering it on day one.
A lot of the older stock was refronted in the Georgian and Regency period, when the town did well for itself. What that means practically is that a brick or rendered elevation is not a reliable guide to what is behind it. Timber framing survives in more Lutterworth buildings than look timber framed from the street, and it turns up when you open a wall.
Away from the core the picture is more ordinary: Victorian and interwar housing, post-war semi-detached, and the larger modern estates north and east of the town. Those are the most straightforward jobs we do here, usually with side access and a garden to work in.
Those are the places we work most often, not the limit of where we go. We cover the town and the surrounding Leicestershire villages, so if you are not sure whether we reach you, just ask.
The answers that genuinely differ from one Lutterworth street to the next.
Harborough District Council is the local planning authority for Lutterworth and the surrounding villages. Planning applications and building control both go through the district council, though you can use an approved inspector for building control instead if you prefer.
Many single storey rear extensions on the semi-detached and modern housing around the edges of the town fall within permitted development, which means no planning application is needed. 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.
Lutterworth Conservation Area covers the medieval core of the town. It runs south as far as the River Swift, north far enough to take in the Police Station complex, and west past the churchyard to include the cricket ground. If your house sits inside it, permitted development rights are reduced and the council has extra control over what can be done without permission, so we check the designation before anything is drawn.
It is worth knowing what is in there. The Church of St Mary with its pinnacled tower, the Town Hall of 1836, and the Police Station of 1843, which is the oldest purpose built police station in Leicestershire. Three former coaching inns sit on the main street: the Denbigh Arms, the Hind and the Greyhound. Work in the streets around these gets looked at more closely than work on the estates, and rightly so.
The narrow frontages in the older part of town mean shared boundaries are close by more often than not. If the work comes near or against one you are likely to need a party wall award. We raise that at quotation stage, not three weeks into the dig.
This catches people out in Lutterworth. Harborough District Council handles your planning application, but it does not license skips. Leicestershire County Council is the highway authority, so a skip standing on a public road here needs a licence from the county. The application is made by the skip company rather than by you or by us, and it needs to be in before the skip arrives rather than on the day.
On the older streets the garden may run a hundred feet back while the frontage is barely wide enough for the house. If there is no entry, materials come in through the hall and spoil goes out the same way. It is workable, we do it regularly, but it changes the sequence of the job and it changes the price. Anyone quoting the same rate here as on a modern estate has not looked at the access.
No licence is needed at all. On the newer housing north and east of the town that is usually the case, and it takes both cost and a week of lead time out of the job.
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.
