Scaffolding in Wickford

Wickford was a small farming village when the railway arrived in 1889. The station brought the plotlands, and the plotlands brought the builders. Shotgate, east along the A129, began as plotland in 1907 and took its present shape after 1927, when the Archer family's land was sold and Bruce Grove, First to Fifth Avenues and the shop parades went up. Runwell, over the northern boundary, is a separate parish.

Very little of that is old. The stock is inter-war bungalows and semis on the plotland roads, post-war semis and detached houses on the estates, and now the extension and loft work that thirty- and forty-year-old houses generate. A hipped semi going to a rear dormer or a hip-to-gable needs a front and rear lift, a loading bay for the steels, and the scaffold adapted as the dormer goes on. See loft conversion scaffolding. A two-storey side extension needs the flank lift tied back to the house and, where the gap is tight, a bridge over the neighbour's path so their access stays open. See extension and new build scaffolding.

The River Crouch runs through the town centre. In September 1958 it flooded, and the national papers printed a double-decker bus half under water at Halls Corner. It flooded again in 1960, and after that the river was put into a concrete channel through the centre. Ground near the river is low and wet. On those plots sole boards go under every standard and we look at the base again at the first inspection.

Runwell Hospital closed in 2010 and the site is now St Luke's Park, around 580 homes in the old hospital parkland with the 1937 chapel kept. New estates like that bring snagging, render repairs and the first round of extensions a few years in. Wickford's small developers work the infill plots and the backland sites off the plotland roads, and we scaffold those a plot at a time on one programme, erecting, adapting and striking so the next trade is never waiting.

Wickford has been tied to Billericay and Basildon since it joined Billericay Urban District in the 1930s, and today Basildon Borough Council is the planning authority for the Wickford side of SS11 and SS12. Runwell and the St Luke's Park site fall under Chelmsford City Council. That does not change the highway licence. The roads in both belong to Essex County Council, and any scaffold standing on or over the public highway needs a licence through Essex Highways. Only the scaffolding contractor may apply, so we do; Essex Highways takes 15 working days from receipt to process it, the licence is valid for two weeks from the date of issue and can be applied for initially for up to 26 weeks, and a renewal takes three working days from receipt. The High Street and the parades are the licence jobs; most houses have a drive and the scaffold sits inside the boundary. Wickford has no conservation area; the borough's four are Billericay, Great Burstead, Little Burstead and Noak Bridge.

Loft firms, builders on extensions, roofers, renderers and small developers on infill plots. Homeowners whose builder has said "sort the scaffold" ring us and we survey it with the builder. The tag on the standard is our word that the scaffold was safe on the date of inspection. If the plan changes, the number on the tag is the one to ring. One number, start to finish.

We cover Basildon to the south and Rayleigh to the east. Billericay and South Woodham Ferrers are covered too. See all areas, or request a survey.

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

Request a survey