Scaffolding in South Ockendon and Aveley

After the war the London County Council bought 1,220 acres across Aveley and South Ockendon to rehouse Londoners. The first house on the Belhus estate was occupied in 1950. By 1959 there were 4,000 houses and 1,320 flats, and by 1961 the estate held 22,212 people. Kenningtons, on the western edge of Belhus Park in Aveley, was finished in the early 1960s. The Greater London Council followed with the Flowers estate in the late 1960s: Lecaplan Type B precast concrete terraces in rows of eight, designed by J C Tilley and made by W and C French, on the strip beside the station. The whole estate passed to Thurrock in 1980.

That is the stock: 1950s brick terraces and semis, 1950s flats, and 1960s precast concrete terraces, all of it now sixty to seventy-five years old.

A Belhus roof from 1950 is at or past its second covering. A re-roof on a terrace needs edge protection front and back, a loading bay for the tiles and a chimney stack scaffold for the party stack, and where the scaffold stops at the party line that is by agreement with the neighbour. Flat roofs are a job of their own: with no eaves to work to, the edge protection runs the whole perimeter, and the scaffold is set to the height of the deck, not the gutter. A Lecaplan terrace is precast concrete panel, which takes a tie differently from brick. Where a panel cannot take a drilled anchor, the scaffold is designed with ties through openings or to stand without them. We look at that at the survey. See roofing scaffolding, and domestic scaffolding if your roofer has told you to sort the scaffold.

A loft conversion on a Belhus or Kenningtons semi needs a front lift and a rear lift, with edge protection round the new dormer while the roof is open. The crew brings the rear scaffold in through the side gate, so the gate and the path are agreed before the day. The scaffold stays up for the roofer and then the window fitter, and is struck once both have signed off. See loft conversion scaffolding.

South Ockendon's green, with the Norman church of St Nicholas of Myra and the Royal Oak, and the windmill beyond, is the village the estate grew round. Aveley has St Michael's, Grade I listed and twelfth-century, and the Old Ship. Neither South Ockendon nor Aveley is a conservation area. Thurrock's seven are Corringham, East Tilbury, Fobbing, Horndon on the Hill, Orsett, Purfleet and West Tilbury. So the older houses here are governed by listing where they are listed and by nothing extra where they are not, and the survey looks at the wall, not the paperwork.

Aveley sits inside the M25 and South Ockendon just outside it, with the A13 along the south and junction 30 of the M25 where the two meet, so the lorry comes off the trunk road and is on the estate in minutes. Ockendon station opened on 1 July 1892 and sits on a passing loop of the single-track c2c branch from Upminster to Grays. The estate's main roads are wide but parked up; the closes and the forecourts of the flats are where the lorry cannot stand for long. We agree the delivery slot and where the materials land before the crew arrives.

Thurrock has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1998, so it is both the planning authority and the highway authority. A scaffold on or over the public pavement in South Ockendon or Aveley is licensed by Thurrock Council, not by Essex Highways and not by Havering. A house on its own drive on Belhus needs no licence. A shop on Aveley High Street or a parade on the estate does, and the lead time goes into the programme at the survey.

We cover Grays and Thurrock to the south-east and Upminster and Rainham to the north-west. See all areas, or request a survey.

Ring 07490 092490, WhatsApp the same number, or fill in the survey card.

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