Working in Greater Manchester

Builder in Manchester

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 are working in Manchester. Every photograph on this page is from one job there: an orangery-style extension with a full-width glazed roof lantern, new stone steps down to a porcelain terrace, and a painted shaker kitchen running the length of the room behind it. Every frame is the same house, inside and out, and each one shows a different part of it. They are the best photographs on this website by a distance, and they are on the Manchester page because that is where they were taken.

Two honest notes before you scroll. The first is that this job was worked alongside another contractor, and until we have it in writing exactly which parts of the build were BXC's package, this page will not tell you that we built this house. It will tell you what is in the photograph, which is the part we can stand behind. The second is that Manchester is roughly 190 miles from Luton and we are not going to dress that up as a firm on your doorstep. What we will do is tell you plainly how a job at that distance gets run, which is the next section.

What we take in Manchester is what we take at home: extensions, loft conversions, roofing, brickwork and full house renovations, run by one contractor rather than co-ordinated by you. The only real difference is that the travel has to be worth it for both of us, so we would rather have one honest conversation about scope and budget at the start than waste your week and ours.

We also cover nearby

  • Manchester
  • Salford
  • Trafford
  • Stockport
  • Tameside
  • Oldham
  • Rochdale
  • Bury
  • Bolton
  • Wigan

What we do here

The same six services we run in Bedfordshire. Extensions and full renovations are the bulk of what makes a Manchester job worth the distance for both sides, and the photographs above are one of each on the same house.

  • 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

Are you a Manchester builder?
No, and we would rather say so on the page than let you find out later. BXC Developments is based in Luton in Bedfordshire. We are working in Manchester, we have a job photographed there, and we take projects there. What we are not is a firm with a Manchester yard round the corner from you. For some jobs that matters, and if yours is one of them we will say so.

Which council decides my planning application in Greater Manchester?
Not Greater Manchester. It is made up of ten metropolitan boroughs, which are Bolton, Bury, Manchester, Oldham, Rochdale, Salford, Stockport, Tameside, Trafford and Wigan, and under section 1 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 the council of a metropolitan district is the local planning authority for that district. There is no Greater Manchester level route for a householder application and the Combined Authority does not decide one. Tell us the borough and the postcode and we will tell you exactly who you are dealing with before we come out.

What is Places for Everyone, and does it apply to me?
It is the joint development plan for Greater Manchester and it became part of the statutory development plan on 21 March 2024. It covers nine of the ten districts. Stockport is the exception: it withdrew from the earlier Greater Manchester Spatial Framework in 2020 and is now working to a government timetable for its own local plan. So if you are in Stockport, including the SK8 postcodes around Cheadle, your policy background is different from the rest of the county, and that is worth knowing before anyone draws anything.

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.

How far can I extend at the back without planning permission?
Under the General Permitted Development Order 2015, Schedule 2, Part 1, Class A, a single-storey rear extension is limited to three metres on an attached house and four metres on a detached one. There is a larger route, six and eight metres, but it needs prior approval, it caps at four metres in height, your neighbours get twenty-one days to object and the council has forty-two days to decide. It is also not available on conservation area land. In a city where the Census puts only 5.4 per cent of homes as detached, the three metre figure is the one that matters for most people. And original means the house as it stood on 1 July 1948, so somebody else's extension from the nineties comes off your allowance.

Do I need a coal mining report?
Probably not for the planning application, and possibly yes before anyone digs, and those two get confused constantly. Much of Greater Manchester sits on the Pennine Coal Measures and the British Geological Survey names subsidence from abandoned workings as a hazard for the district. Householder development is exempt from the Coal Mining Risk Assessment that a planning application would otherwise need in a Development High Risk Area. Separately, any intrusive work that disturbs or enters coal seams, workings or shafts needs a permit, and that can include foundation excavation. On a normal extension it rarely arises. Where it might, it gets dealt with before the digger is booked.

I am in a conservation area. What changes?
More than most people expect, and it does not need a special direction to happen. In a conservation area the Order itself removes side extensions, rear extensions of more than one storey, most cladding, and roof extensions and rear dormers entirely, and it takes away the larger rear extension route. Manchester has thirty-four conservation areas. Some districts go further with an Article 4 direction: Cheadle Village in Stockport has one that has been in force since 2006 and removes householder permitted development across several classes. Tell us the address and this is one of the first things we check.

Where in Manchester was the job in these photographs?
We have not been given the district, so we are not naming one. Manchester is as precise as we can honestly be until Bes confirms it, and we would rather be vague than wrong. The same applies to the scope. The photographs show finished work, and when we have his written breakdown of which parts were BXC's package, this page will say so and will say it plainly.

How do you actually run a job at that distance?
The same way as any other job, with the travel priced into it rather than hidden. One survey before the quote, a written itemised price with a programme attached, and then we are up there for the run of the work rather than commuting. If a job genuinely needs someone on site for two hours a week over six months, it is the wrong job for us and we will tell you that at the survey.

Is there a minimum job size?
We do not publish one, because any number we picked would be arbitrary and would be wrong for half the jobs it was applied to. What is true is that a project has to be big enough to be worth a contractor coming from Bedfordshire, and that is a five minute conversation on the phone rather than something you should have to guess at from a website.

Can I see more of your work?
Yes, and it is worth knowing where it is. The Manchester work is on this page. Everything else on this site was photographed in and around Luton and is labelled that way, so you are never looking at a photograph pretending to be somewhere it is not.

Get a free quote

Tell us the borough, the postcode and roughly what you are after. You will get an honest answer about whether the distance works before anyone books a survey.

Get a free quote Call 07448 465880

The Manchester job, inside and out.

One house: an orangery-style extension, a glazed roof lantern, a new porcelain terrace and the kitchen behind it. Photographed in Manchester, captioned as Manchester, and shown nowhere on this site as Luton work.

  • 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)
  • 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)
  • Completed orangery-style extension with a glazed roof lantern and new stone steps to a porcelain patio (Manchester)
    Completed orangery-style extension with a glazed roof lantern and new stone steps to a porcelain patio (Manchester)
  • Finished kitchen with a sink island and a glazed roof lantern over the space beyond (Manchester)
    Finished kitchen with a sink island and a glazed roof lantern over the space beyond (Manchester)
  • Finished kitchen island with bar stools under a glazed roof lantern (Manchester)
    Finished kitchen island with bar stools under a glazed roof lantern (Manchester)
  • Finished kitchen island with a sink and a glazed roof lantern over the space beyond (Manchester)
    Finished kitchen island with a sink and a glazed roof lantern over the space beyond (Manchester)
  • Finished kitchen island with a glazed opening to the garden and a roof lantern beyond (Manchester)
    Finished kitchen island with a glazed opening to the garden and a roof lantern beyond (Manchester)
  • Tall glazed gable window in a finished extension with a vaulted ceiling (Manchester)
    Tall glazed gable window in a finished extension with a vaulted ceiling (Manchester)
  • Painted kitchen mantel over an induction hob with a stone splashback (Manchester)
    Painted kitchen mantel over an induction hob with a stone splashback (Manchester)
  • Run of tall painted kitchen units with two built-in ovens (Manchester)
    Run of tall painted kitchen units with two built-in ovens (Manchester)
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