Builders in Leavesden

It is also an unusual place to build, because Leavesden is really two places at once. There is the older village spine along the High Road, with its mix of 1930s semis and post-war houses, and then there is the newer Leavesden that has grown up around the former aerodrome and the studios — denser, newer, and usually on much tighter plots. Those two halves need quite different approaches, and we have spent years working out which is which.

The studios have changed the area commercially as well. With the continuing expansion of Warner Bros. Studios Leavesden and the jobs and investment that brings, more local homeowners are investing in their properties rather than moving, and more of them are working to schedules that need a builder who turns up when they say they will.

Most of the work we do in Leavesden falls into one of three types. On the older High Road stock we are usually dealing with a tired 1930s or post-war semi that needs opening up at the back and a loft brought into use — the bones are good, the layout is simply out of date. On the newer estates around the former aerodrome the buildings are sound but the rooms are often small and the gardens tight, so the projects lean towards single-storey rear extensions, garden rooms and careful internal reconfiguration rather than anything dramatic. And on the handful of larger detached properties we get asked for wrap-around extensions and full refurbishments.