Steel staircases in Surrey

Steel staircases for the houses of east Surrey

East Surrey is mostly owner-occupied detached and semi-detached houses on sloping, hilly plots. The 2011 census counted 1,154 detached and 1,182 semi-detached homes in Warlingham and 524 detached houses in Woldingham, and both places stand high on the Downs, so the steel staircase those plots call for is a galvanised garden flight from the back door to a lower lawn, or an external stair from a first-floor room down to the garden. In Oxted, where flats were 18 per cent of homes in 2011, and at the redeveloped Caterham Barracks and the 677 homes of Cane Hill Park in Coulsdon, the work shifts to fire escapes, shared external stairs and balconies with steel or glass balustrades.

Along Old Oxted High Street, with its fifteenth and sixteenth century buildings, in Bletchingley and on Reigate's Georgian and Victorian streets, the steelwork tends to be railings and Juliet balconies fitted alongside a replacement stair, drawn with listed building consent in mind.

Green Belt, the Surrey Hills and conservation areas

Around 94 per cent of Tandridge is Metropolitan Green Belt, and the Surrey Hills National Landscape covers Woldingham, Chaldon and the downs above Oxted and Limpsfield, with Reigate Hill and Colley Hill on the Reigate and Banstead side. There, side extensions and two-storey rear extensions need planning permission. Balconies and raised platforms are excluded from householder permitted development everywhere, so an external balcony or a raised landing at the head of a stair goes in as a full application while a Juliet balcony with no platform normally does not.

Tandridge has nineteen conservation areas, including Oxted, Limpsfield Village, Godstone Green and Church Town, Bletchingley, Chaldon, Woldingham Green and Caterham Barracks; Warlingham village, Whyteleafe and the main body of Caterham have none. Reigate and Banstead has Article 4 directions on most of its conservation areas, so in Redhill's St John's expect external changes to need permission. Limpsfield alone has 89 listed buildings, each needing consent for anything fixed to it.

Access, ground and finishes on the Downs

Levels come first here. Caterham sits in an upper valley cut into the dip slope of the Downs at 110 to 236 metres, Whyteleafe in a dry valley on the A22, Warlingham on the scarp slope up to 199.6 metres, and Woldingham's houses at 150 to 248 metres below The Ridge, so gardens drop away below the house. We survey the levels, fabricate stringers in lengths two people can carry down a side passage, and confirm the fixings in the structural calculations. The Webb Estate at Purley is gated, so deliveries are arranged beforehand.

Godstone's ground is sandstone rather than chalk, and its High Street had sinkholes in February 2025 thought to be linked to old mine workings, so footings there are checked on site. Plots above Woldingham and Chaldon are exposed, so mild steel is hot-dip galvanised before powder coating, and inside the National Landscape we suggest a dark RAL colour that reads as shadow against woodland.

Getting to you from Westerham Hill

Tatsfield and Titsey on the Surrey side of Westerham Hill share our TN16 postcode, and the 3,000-acre Titsey Place estate lies along the foot of the Downs between the workshop and Oxted. In free-flowing traffic Limpsfield is 4.2 miles and about ten minutes away, Oxted 5.5 miles, Woldingham 6, Warlingham 6.9, Whyteleafe and Godstone 8.2, Caterham 9.2 and Bletchingley 9.8. Kenley and Purley are just under 11 miles, Coulsdon 12.4, Redhill 13.5 and Reigate 16.7, the last two reached along the A25 past M25 Junction 6 at Godstone. We use the A25 through Limpsfield, Oxted and Bletchingley and the A22 down through Whyteleafe for most of these runs, and because peak-hour traffic on both roads adds to the free-flow times, survey and fitting slots are booked with that margin built in.

Where we work in Surrey and on the Croydon edge

Warlingham, on its triangular tree-lined green, is the centre of this area and everything within ten miles of it is covered: Whyteleafe is 1.5 miles away, Caterham 2.5, Woldingham 2.6, Kenley 4, Purley 4.2, Godstone 5, Coulsdon 5.6, Limpsfield 5.7, Oxted 6.1, Bletchingley 6.6 and Redhill 8.3. That takes in Caterham on the Hill and Caterham Valley, Chaldon, Chelsham and Farleigh, Hamsey Green, Tatsfield and Titsey, Hurst Green, Tandridge village, South Godstone, Nutfield and Merstham, with Reigate and Woodhatch, where the county council sits at Woodhatch Place, a little beyond at 12.3 miles.

Sanderstead, Purley and Riddlesdown, Kenley, Coulsdon and Old Coulsdon moved into the London Borough of Croydon on 1 April 1965, but they are the same chalk ridges and interwar houses as Warlingham, so we cover them on the same round; planning applications there go to Croydon. Postcodes CR3, CR6, CR8, CR5, CR2, RH8, RH9, RH1 and RH2 all fall inside this area.

Balustrades, gates and railings

Balustrades, gates and railings are made in the same workshop and follow the same local rules. A gate or railing is permitted development only up to one metre beside a highway or two metres elsewhere, so a taller entrance gate on a Woldingham or Reigate drive needs an application, as does any railing fixed to a listed building or on a boundary that adjoins one. In a conservation area such as Bletchingley or Godstone Green, taking an old wall or gate down can need permission as well. Stainless steel and glass balustrades suit the newer homes at Cane Hill Park and Caterham Barracks; painted flat-bar railings and Juliet balconies belong on the Edwardian houses of the Webb Estate, the Victorian streets of Redhill and the older buildings of Caterham on the Hill.

Questions from Surrey customers