Builders in Horley and the villages around it.

We are a Reigate design and build company, based at 49 Vogan Close in RH2, and Horley is one of the towns we know best. It is a straight run down the A217 and the A23, twenty minutes on a normal morning, and it sits inside the same borough as our own yard. That matters more than it sounds. The planning department, the building control team and the local plan policies are the ones we deal with week in and week out, so nothing about a Horley job is unfamiliar territory for us. We have been building since 1996, and a good share of the work we take on here still comes through a neighbour who watched us finish the last one.

The housing stock is unusually varied for a town this size, and the type of house tends to decide the type of job. Around the station and along Victoria Road, Massetts Road and Albert Road you find Victorian and Edwardian cottages and terraces, often narrow fronted, with solid brick walls, no cavity and a side alley that a wide machine will never get down. Push out along Brighton Road, Lumley Road and Balcombe Road and it turns into inter war semis and detached houses on generous plots, which are close to ideal for a rear or wraparound extension. The post war estates on the eastern and southern edges of the town give you the classic loft conversion and side return opportunities. And then there is everything built in the last decade or so at Westvale Park to the west and Horley North East around Langshott, where the houses are sound and well insulated but the rooms are often smaller than a growing family wants, so the work is usually about reconfiguring rather than repairing.

Planning here goes through Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, and the answer is rarely the same twice. Plenty of single storey rear extensions in Horley sit comfortably inside permitted development, which is quicker and cheaper. But those rights are commonly restricted on newer estates where the original consent removed them, they do not apply to flats, and they thin out in the oldest part of town around St Bartholomew's Church and Church Road, where listed buildings and conservation constraints are most likely to bite. We check what actually applies to your address before anyone puts a pen to paper, because finding out three weeks into a design is an expensive way to learn.

The other thing that makes Horley different from the rest of Surrey is the airport on its doorstep. Gatwick sits immediately south of the town, and aerodrome safeguarding means the airport gets consulted on some applications, particularly anything tall, anything involving a crane, and anything that creates open water and could attract birds. Aircraft noise can also shape a scheme, most often through the glazing and ventilation specification on new bedrooms and living rooms, so the acoustic performance of a window becomes a real design decision rather than a line on an invoice. None of this stops good work getting built. It just needs raising on the first visit, which is what we do.

Below ground, Horley sits low and flat on Weald Clay, with the River Mole and the Burstow Stream running through it, so parts of the town carry a flood risk and much of it has ground that shrinks and swells with the seasons. Both affect foundations, drainage and the way surface water has to be dealt with. We survey the ground properly, dig to the depth the conditions and any nearby trees demand, and design the drainage so the finished job does not push a problem onto next door. On the narrower Victorian roads we plan the muck away and the deliveries in advance rather than assuming a lorry can simply turn up.

We are a design and build company, which means one team and one point of contact from the first survey through to handover. We work alongside architects, designers and structural engineers rather than employing them, so you get people who are genuinely good at their part of it while we run the whole thing. Groundworks, structure, first fix, second fix and finishes all sit with us. That is what we mean by from the soil in the ground to the keys in your hand.