Working in London

Builder in London

Get a free quote Call Bes — 07448 465880

Bes Cuni: Registered Building Inspector (Class 2), MCIOB, AssocRICS

BXC Developments is a building contractor based in Luton, and we take work in London. Luton is about thirty miles up the M1 and a little over half an hour on the fast train into St Pancras, which is why London jobs are practical for us in a way that jobs much further out are not.

Now the thing most builders' area pages will not tell you. We have not yet photographed a job in London. The photographs further down this page are examples of our work from the Luton area and from one job in Manchester, and every caption says where it was taken. Putting that work under a London heading without saying so would be the easiest thing in the world to do, and it would be a lie by arrangement. So the gallery is labelled for exactly what it is, and when there is a London job with real photographs of it, those go on this page as London.

Alongside those photographs, this page carries the three things you can actually check: what we do, what Bes holds and where you can verify it, and what is genuinely different about building in London compared with building at home. If that is enough to be worth a conversation, ring Bes and ask him directly.

We also cover nearby

  • Barnet
  • Enfield
  • Harrow
  • Brent
  • Camden
  • Islington
  • Haringey
  • Hillingdon
  • Ealing
  • Hackney
  • Waltham Forest
  • Westminster

What we do here

The same services we run in Bedfordshire. Tell us the borough and the postcode with your first message, because in London that decides the planning route, the party wall position and often the foundation depth.

  • House extensionsSingle storey, double storey and wrap-around, with the structural design done properly.
  • Loft conversionsDormer, hip-to-gable and rooflight, with the fire and staircase work included.
  • RoofingSlate and tile re-roofs, flat roofs, lead work and chimney repairs.
  • BrickworkNew walls, structural openings, repointing and brick matching.
  • BricklayerSub-contract bricklaying for builders, self-builders and architects.
  • Home renovationsWhole house refurbishments run by one contractor.
  • Fire and flood refurbishmentInsurance reinstatement, working with your loss adjuster.

Questions we get asked

Have you built in London?
Not one we have photographed, and we are not going to imply otherwise. This page exists because London is where Bes is taking work, not because there is a London portfolio sitting behind it. When there is a London job on the ground, its photographs and the detail go on this page, labelled as London. Until then, judge us on the credentials, which are on public registers, and on the Luton and Manchester work in the gallery on this page, which is real and is captioned with where each photograph was taken.

Who decides my planning application in London?
Your borough. There are thirty-two London boroughs plus the City of London Corporation, thirty-three planning authorities in all, and each has its own local plan, its own conservation areas and its own list of what a valid application has to include. The Mayor's London Plan sits above them and sets strategic policy, but the Mayor only gets involved in applications of potential strategic importance, which start at scales like a hundred and fifty homes or buildings above thirty metres. Nothing about a single house extension, loft or basement reaches him. Tell us the borough and we will tell you what you are dealing with.

Why are foundations deeper in London than in Luton?
Because a great deal of London sits on shrinkable clay, which swells and shrinks with moisture, and mature trees near the line of a new foundation make it worse by drawing water out of the ground. Luton sits on chalk, which generally does not behave that way. Approved Document A puts the minimum depth in shrinkable clay at 0.75 metres on low shrinkage, 0.9 metres on medium and 1.0 metres on high, and says plainly that those depths may need to be increased where there are trees nearby. The commonly repeated 0.9 metres is the medium figure, not a London default. It is one of the reasons the same extension costs more here, and it is a survey question rather than a guess.

Is my house likely to be a flat rather than a house?
Statistically, yes. The 2021 Census put 54.0 per cent of London households in a flat, maisonette or apartment against 22.2 per cent for England, and only 6.1 per cent in a detached house. It matters because permitted development rights under Part 1 of the Order apply to houses and not to flats or maisonettes, so a great deal of what a homeowner reads online about extending without permission simply does not apply to a London flat. Tell us which you have in the first message and it saves a wasted conversation.

Will I need a party wall agreement?
On a terrace or a semi, very probably, and often two notices rather than one. Cutting into a party wall to take the bearing of a beam is the example the government's own guidance gives, and that is exactly what a rear extension or a loft conversion steel does: section 3 of the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, at least two months' notice. Separately, excavating within three metres of a neighbour's building and deeper than their foundations is section 6, at least one month's notice, and on London clay your foundations very often will be deeper. Two clocks, both of which belong in the programme on day one rather than being remembered later.

What will the application itself cost?
The planning fee is set nationally rather than by your borough. From 1 April 2026 a householder application in England is 548 pounds, and prior approval for a larger home extension or an additional storey is 249 pounds. That is the council's fee, not ours, and it sits alongside building control, any structural engineer's fees and any party wall surveyor. We itemise all of it rather than folding it into a single number, so you can see what is ours and what is not.

Do you do the building control on your own work?
No, and this is worth being blunt about because it is the obvious thing to assume. Bes is a Registered Building Inspector at Class 2, registered with the Building Safety Regulator, which has been a legal requirement for anyone doing building control work in England since 6 April 2024. The register is public and you can look him up. What that does not allow is building control on his own company's work. An inspector is not permitted to act where his company has a professional or financial interest, which includes anything BXC designed or built. Your building control comes from the council or from a building control approver you appoint, exactly as it would with any other builder. The value to you is the other way round: the man running your job has been assessed on the Building Regulations from the inspector's side of the table, so the details that normally get picked up at inspection tend to be right first time.

Are you cheaper because you are not a London firm?
We are not going to promise that. A contractor coming in from outside London does not automatically come in cheaper, because travel, parking, permits, waste and sometimes accommodation all land somewhere in the price. What we will do is itemise them so you can see them rather than have them buried in a single figure, which also means you can compare our quote fairly against a local one.

How do we start?
Send the borough, the postcode, a couple of photographs and a sentence about what you want. Bes will tell you on the phone whether it is a job we should be quoting, before anybody spends a morning travelling.

Get a free quote

Send the borough, the postcode and a sentence about the job. You will get a straight answer about whether we are the right firm for it before a survey is booked.

Get a free quote Call 07448 465880

Examples of our work from Luton and Manchester.

None of these is a London job. They were photographed in the Luton area and on one job in Manchester, and each caption says which.

  • Finished dining area under a large glazed roof lantern with sliding doors onto the garden (Manchester)
    Finished dining area under a large glazed roof lantern with sliding doors onto the garden (Manchester)
  • Box dormer loft conversion above a new single-storey rear extension with a finished flat roof (Luton area)
    Box dormer loft conversion above a new single-storey rear extension with a finished flat roof (Luton area)
  • Brick piers on the Barnfield College building in Luton with operatives working from the scaffold along the front elevation
    Brick piers on the Barnfield College building in Luton with operatives working from the scaffold along the front elevation
  • Completed bathroom with a freestanding bath, twin vanity and full-height glazing onto the garden (Luton area)
    Completed bathroom with a freestanding bath, twin vanity and full-height glazing onto the garden (Luton area)
  • Rear elevation of a house with a completed orangery extension and a new raised porcelain terrace (Manchester)
    Rear elevation of a house with a completed orangery extension and a new raised porcelain terrace (Manchester)
  • Loft conversion with a vaulted plastered ceiling running to a gable window (Luton area)
    Loft conversion with a vaulted plastered ceiling running to a gable window (Luton area)
  • Newly slated roof looking up the hip to a brick chimney stack with fresh lead work (Luton area)
    Newly slated roof looking up the hip to a brick chimney stack with fresh lead work (Luton area)
  • Painted shaker kitchen with a range cooker and a stone-topped island (Luton area)
    Painted shaker kitchen with a range cooker and a stone-topped island (Luton area)
  • Acrow props and strongboys supporting floor joists while a steel beam is installed (Luton area)
    Acrow props and strongboys supporting floor joists while a steel beam is installed (Luton area)
  • Hallway laid with a herringbone parquet floor looking out to the garden (Luton area)
    Hallway laid with a herringbone parquet floor looking out to the garden (Luton area)
  • Newly laid fibreglass flat roof with the timber upstand formed ready for a roof lantern (Luton area)
    Newly laid fibreglass flat roof with the timber upstand formed ready for a roof lantern (Luton area)
  • Completed walk-in shower with a curved glass screen, fluted panelling and brass fittings (Luton area)
    Completed walk-in shower with a curved glass screen, fluted panelling and brass fittings (Luton area)
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