Steel staircases in Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon

Staircase work in Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon

Sanderstead is a predominantly 1930s suburb with detached homes prominent, and the council expects it to grow mainly by infilling, so the work there is to existing houses: an external steel staircase from a first-floor extension or loft room down to the garden, or a replacement for a failed stair. Riddlesdown's 1930s houses by the station on Lower Barn Road and the inter-war properties of Selsdon Garden Village, laid out from 1926, suit the same straight external flight, powder coated to a RAL colour.

Kenley asks for something else. Its 1860s and 1880s villas stand in substantial grounds on the western hillside, and a galvanised steel garden staircase that steps down the slope serves them better than a long concrete run. The smaller late-Victorian houses along Godstone Road take a spiral where garden space is short. Coulsdon's post-war flats bring fire escape stairs, drawn with structural calculations for Building Control.

Planning rules for a staircase in Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon

Three rules do most of the work. A balcony or raised platform is excluded from permitted development on any house, so an external staircase with a first-floor landing normally needs planning permission, while a Juliet balcony with no platform normally does not. Both external staircases and balconies on flats always need an application. And in the five conservation areas on this side of the borough, the Webb Estate, Upper Woodcote Village, Kenley Aerodrome, Bradmore Green and Croham Manor Road, decking is not permitted development and every side extension or multi-storey rear extension needs householder permission.

Houses on Green Belt land in the Kenley, Sanderstead and Old Coulsdon areas come under Policy DM26, which limits extensions to 20 per cent of the original floor space or volume. Policy DM10 on design and character is the test for householder extensions since the 2019 Suburban Design Guide was revoked. The application goes in through the council's Public Access portal with our scaled drawings.

Access and site conditions on the chalk

The southern suburbs stand on North Downs chalk and flint, on steep hillsides and dry valleys. Sanderstead sits above a dry valley, Selsdon is about 150 metres up, Purley Downs holds London's second-highest point and Rickman Hill Park in Coulsdon, at 155 metres, is the highest public park in London. Gardens on those slopes fall away behind the house, so we take levels at the survey and set the stringers to the fall we find. Kenley's villas in substantial grounds and the large plots of the Webb Estate have room for a finished flight on a trailer; the Webb Estate is gated, so we agree the arrival with the owner. The late-Victorian houses along Godstone Road mean bolted sections carried through a side passage.

Flats are a different matter. Where the only way in is through a shared stairwell or a lift, the flight leaves the workshop in pieces small enough to get through and is bolted together where it stands.

Getting to Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon from Westerham Hill

Our workshop at 4 Fort Cottages sits on Betsom's Hill, the highest ground in Kent, and these suburbs are close. Sanderstead is 8.5 miles and about 16 minutes by road, Selsdon 9 miles and 17 minutes, Kenley 9.8 miles and 20 minutes, and Purley 10.8 miles and 23 minutes. Coulsdon is 12 miles and 26 minutes; through traffic on the A23 has bypassed its Smitham Bottom centre on Farthing Way since December 2006. Those are free-flow times. The A22, the A23 and Purley Cross all slow at peak hours, so surveys go in early and the van is loaded the evening before. Warlingham, the centre of our forty-mile working circle, adjoins Sanderstead and Hamsey Green directly; from there Sanderstead is 2 miles, Kenley 3.2 miles and Purley 4.2 miles, so a survey in Purley or Sanderstead often follows a job in Surrey the same morning.

Where we work around Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon

Purley and Kenley are CR8, Sanderstead and Selsdon CR2, and Coulsdon and Old Coulsdon CR5, and we work in all of them. In Purley that means the Webb Estate and Promenade de Verdun, Woodcote Village Green and the houses around Purley, Purley Oaks and Reedham stations. Sanderstead runs from the pond and All Saints' church up to Purley Downs and out to Hamsey Green; Selsdon from the Triangle clock to Selsdon Wood and Littleheath Woods; Riddlesdown along Lower Barn Road. In Kenley we work either side of Kenley Common and the aerodrome, and in Coulsdon from Smitham Bottom and Cane Hill up to Old Coulsdon, Bradmore Green and the edge of Farthing Downs. Over the Surrey boundary the same van goes on to Warlingham, Whyteleafe, Caterham, Chaldon and Chipstead.

Gates, railings and balustrades in Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon

Staircases come first, but balustrades, railings and gates come from the same workshop. A gate or railing beside a road used by vehicles is permitted development up to 1 metre high, and 2 metres elsewhere, but that right has been removed on open Green Belt land both sides of Kenley Lane and west of Hawkhirst Road, on open Green Belt land south of Mitchley Hill and east of Dunmail Drive in Sanderstead, and on open land within the Kenley Aerodrome conservation area, so there an application comes before any steel is cut. In every conservation area, taking down a gate or wall above a set height needs permission too, and in the grounds of a Grade I church such as All Saints' Sanderstead or St John the Evangelist at Old Coulsdon, listed building consent may be needed. We make them in mild steel, hot-dip galvanised and then powder coated to any RAL colour, or in stainless steel, with glass or timber infill.

Questions from Purley, Sanderstead and Coulsdon customers