Steel staircases in Kent, made on Westerham Hill

The staircase work west Kent's housing produces

Sevenoaks District Council's Residential Extensions SPD calls extensions a common form of development in the district and picks out two street types as typical: 19th-century terraces with a shared roof profile and 1930s hipped-roof houses. Both give us the same brief. A rear extension or a converted upper room wants an external steel staircase down to the garden, and because the SPD steers loft work to the rear and does not normally allow a new front dormer, the new room at the back is the one that needs its own way down. Dartford's stock is different: 21.4 per cent of households are in purpose-built flats, and that is where fire escape staircases serving upper floors come in. Tunbridge Wells, with 16.4 per cent in purpose-built flats and 5.9 per cent in converted houses, raises the same need. Tonbridge and Malling, 37 per cent semi-detached, is garden staircase and replacement flight country. Balustrades, gates and railings follow.

Planning in Sevenoaks District

Sevenoaks District has 41 conservation areas, Westerham's designated in 1973 and last updated in 2015, and 93 per cent of the district is Metropolitan Green Belt with over 60 per cent inside the Kent Downs or High Weald National Landscape. The council's extensions guidance is specific on the points that touch our work: using a flat-roofed extension as a balcony requires planning permission, and balconies, roof terraces and verandas, Juliet balconies included, should not directly overlook neighbours. Since 2019 the district has used Article 4 directions to bring front gardens and front boundary treatments in the Shoreham and Swanley Village conservation areas under planning control, and proposed the same for Kemsing in 2023, so a new front gate or railing in those villages goes through an application. Kent's districts remain the planning authorities: the plan to replace them with four unitary councils from 2028 was paused in September 2026.

Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells, Dartford and Maidstone

Further east the rules shift with each borough. Tonbridge and Malling, 71 per cent Green Belt, limits permitted development in its Tonbridge and Quarry Hill conservation areas. Tunbridge Wells has an Article 4(2) direction over the St James area, taking in St James Road, Albion Road, Granville Road and Beulah Road, and over 70 per cent of the borough lies in the High Weald National Landscape. Dartford lists directions at 31-35 and 73-87 West Hill and for properties in the Greenhithe conservation area, one of its six. Maidstone, with only 1.3 per cent Green Belt, has 41 conservation areas, some carrying directions that catch any change to a building's external appearance or grounds. Everywhere in the county a gate or railing over one metre beside a road used by vehicles needs permission, and railings put up before July 1948 within a listed building's curtilage are part of the listing. Our scaled drawings go in with the application.

Access, ground and finish on Kent sites

The steepest ground is close to home. Toys Hill, in Brasted parish, stands on the scarp of the Greensand Ridge, and a garden that falls away like that needs a garden staircase with an intermediate landing rather than one long flight. Terraces are the other constraint: 22.4 per cent of Sevenoaks District households and 30.9 per cent of Dartford's live in one, and a mid-terrace has no route to the back except through the house, so we fabricate the flight in sections sized for the hallway and bolt it together in the garden. Blocks of flats in Tunbridge Wells and Dartford are surveyed for craneage or a hand-carry before we quote. Every mild steel staircase is hot-dip galvanised, then powder coated to a RAL colour, which counts on ground as exposed as Betsom's Hill at 251 metres, while stainless steel or glass infill keeps a balustrade light against the Georgian and Victorian elevations of Tunbridge Wells.

Getting to you from Westerham Hill

Westerham Hill is the stretch of the A233 that climbs Betsom's Hill from Westerham towards Biggin Hill, with the Surrey, Kent and Greater London tripoint at Rag Hill on its north-west side, so the van starts at the county's edge and works east. Westerham town below is on the A25 with the M25 close by. By road from the workshop, Orpington is 7.3 miles, Sevenoaks 7.4 miles and about 16 minutes, Edenbridge 8.3 miles, Swanley at the M25 junction 3 and M20 junction 1 interchange 15 miles, Tonbridge 15.7 miles, Dartford 18.4 miles, Royal Tunbridge Wells 18.5 miles and Maidstone 32.5 miles, around 41 minutes when the roads are clear. From Warlingham, the Surrey end of our ten-mile circle, Sevenoaks is 13.8 miles. A free site survey comes first, or a same-day written estimate from a phone photo if you would rather start that way, and the staircase arrives finished from the workshop for our own team to fix.

Where we work across Kent

Westerham is home: the market town on the A25 with the Churchill statue on the green, Quebec House, Chartwell and Grade I Squerryes Court about it, and Brasted and Toys Hill to the east. Sevenoaks sits beside Knole's 1,000-acre deer park east of the A225. Edenbridge, on the River Eden by the Surrey border, keeps many medieval half-timbered buildings, with Hever Castle, Chiddingstone Castle and Bough Beech Reservoir nearby. Tonbridge gathers round its castle on the Medway, and Royal Tunbridge Wells runs from The Pantiles up to Decimus Burton's Calverley Park. Swanley by Swanley Park, Dartford by the Crossing and Greenhithe, and Maidstone around Mote Park and the Archbishop's Palace complete the run east. Orpington, moved into the London Borough of Bromley in 1965, is covered too, The Priory conservation area included. Postcodes TN16, TN13 to TN15, TN8, TN9 to TN12, TN1 to TN4, BR6, BR8, DA1 and ME14 to ME16 are all within range.

Questions from Kent customers