Scaffolding Brixworth

Scaffolding in Brixworth

Brixworth is a little over an hour from our yard at Enslow and about five miles north of Northampton on the A508, which now bypasses it. It is an ironstone village with the largest surviving Anglo-Saxon building in England at the top of it, a Formula One engine factory at the bottom, and a ring of stone villages around it. The scaffolding here is about the stone, and about an unusually good class of commercial work for a village this size.

Ironstone, and why it decides the tie

Brixworth and the villages around it — Spratton, Scaldwell, Hanging Houghton, Lamport, Creaton, Pitsford — are built of the brown Northamptonshire ironstone that was quarried on three sides of the village in the 1860s. It is a handsome, soft, iron-rich limestone, laid as coursed rubble in the older cottages and as dressed blocks on the better houses, and it does not hold a drilled anchor the way brick does.

The village centre is a conservation area, designated in 1973, with All Saints at its heart: an eighth-century church still in use, with Roman brick in the walls. Around it the old village runs down Church Street, Froghall, Silver Street and Spratton Road; beyond that are the post-war estates and the newer housing off Northampton Road; and south of the village, on the bypass, is the Mercedes AMG High Performance Powertrains site, which has grown steadily for twenty years and is the reason a village of five thousand people has serious commercial scaffolding work.

• On ironstone the question is how to tie. Bed joints where the stone is coursed, reveal ties through openings where it is not, and a buttressed or freestanding design on a listed front where nothing should be touched.
• In the conservation area the question is consent. Scaffolding itself rarely needs it; fixings into historic fabric and the work the scaffold serves often do, and we agree the tie pattern with the conservation officer before the scaffold goes up.
• On the engineering sites the question is the programme. Inductions, permits, clean areas and the site’s own hours; freestanding or kentledged designs on cladding that will not take a tie.
• In the villages the question is access. Single-track lanes, long drives and nowhere to stand a lorry for long; whether material is carried or craned is decided on the site visit.

Approvals: West Northamptonshire Council, charging by length

• West Northamptonshire Council is the highway authority for Brixworth, Northampton, Daventry, Towcester and Brackley. It is a unitary authority, so it is also the planning and conservation authority: one council for the licence and the listed-building questions. Kettering, Wellingborough and the east are North Northamptonshire, a different council.
• A scaffold on the public highway — any pavement, path or road — needs a licence under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980. We apply, and the licence runs for as long as the scaffold stands.
• West Northants charges partly by the length of scaffold on the highway, not just by duration. A long frontage on Northampton Road or Spratton Road costs more to licence than a short one for the same weeks, and we say so in the quotation.
• The Brixworth conservation area covers the old village around the church. Scaffolding itself rarely needs consent; fixings into a listed ironstone front and the work the scaffold serves often do.

Any licence figure we quote is indicative, taken from published council schedules. Fees change and vary with length, footway width and duration, so treat it as a budget figure until the application actually goes in.

What we put up in Brixworth

• Re-roofs and chimney work — the staple, from Collyweston and slate on the old village to tile on the estates.
• Repointing and stone repair — lime work on ironstone, longer hires and a scaffold tied for the fabric rather than the convenience.
• Bespoke scaffolding — engineer-designed scaffolds for listed fronts, temporary roofs, freestanding towers and loading bays, drawn and checked before they are built.
• Domestic — extensions, loft conversions, rendering, windows and solar across the estates and the villages.
• Commercial — the village shops and pubs, the schools, and the offices on the A508.
• Industrial — the engineering and test buildings at Mercedes HPP and the units along the A508 and at Pitsford, where there is nothing to tie into and the programme belongs to the site.
• Temporary roofs — weather protection on a winter re-roof, particularly on a listed cottage that stays occupied.

The standards we work to

• TG20:21 — NASC technical guidance for tube-and-fitting scaffolds. Inside its scope the scaffold comes with a TG20 compliance sheet. A freestanding scaffold on an ironstone front, a temporary roof or a loading bay puts you outside it and into an engineer’s design — which is what bespoke actually means.
• SG4 — NASC guidance on preventing falls while the scaffold is erected, altered or struck.
• BS EN 12811-1 — the duty classes. A class 2 inspection scaffold and a class 4 masonry scaffold look the same from the street and are not the same thing, and it is the commonest reason two prices differ.
• Work at Height Regulations 2005 — a scaffold in use is inspected at intervals not exceeding seven days, and again after anything likely to have affected stability.
• CDM 2015 — applies to domestic projects too, with the duties passing to the contractor.

CISRS-qualified and CITB-trained scaffolders, Advanced CHAS accredited, £10 million public liability, RAMS and a job-specific toolbox talk before anyone starts. More on our scaffolding questions page.

How we price it

There is no honest per-metre rate. On a Brixworth job the number moves on:

• How much scaffold and how high.
• Duty class — what the work actually loads the platform with.
• How it is tied — joints, reveal ties or a freestanding design on ironstone cost more care than drilled anchors in a modern cavity wall, and we say so.
• Frontage length — which in West Northamptonshire affects the licence fee directly, not just the material.
• Access — a single-track lane, a long drive, or a controlled engineering site with its own hours.
• Hire period — written into the quotation with an extension rate stated.

The quotation states the duty class, the hire period, what is included and what is not.

Questions we get asked here

Scaffolders in Brixworth, and what hiring us involves

Brixworth is a little over an hour from Enslow, and we run it with Northampton, Towcester and Brackley as our Northamptonshire round. Scaffolding hire in Brixworth is a hire period with erection and strike included and an honest extension cost if the job runs on.

• West Northamptonshire Council is the highway authority. A scaffold on the footway needs their licence, charged partly by length; we apply.
• Free quotation and site visit. Photographs are usually enough on the estates; on ironstone or anywhere in the conservation area we come and look, because the tie pattern is the price.
• Hire in weeks — four to eight typically.
• CISRS-qualified scaffolders, £10 million public liability, scafftags and recorded inspections.

Commercial and industrial scaffolding in Brixworth

For a village, Brixworth has unusual commercial work: the engineering, test and office buildings at Mercedes HPP on the A508, the units at Pitsford and along the bypass, the schools and the village centre. Controlled sites mean inductions, permits, clean conditions and the site’s own hours; the buildings are portal frames and curtain walling that will not take a tie, so freestanding or kentledged designs with the duty class stated in writing. See commercial scaffolding and industrial scaffolding.

Where in Brixworth we work

• The old village. Church Street, Froghall, Silver Street, Spratton Road and the lanes around All Saints: coursed ironstone, listed cottages, the conservation area.
• Northampton Road and the estates. Post-war and modern cavity walls, repeated house types, shared drives; licence on the main-road frontages.
• The A508 and Mercedes HPP. Engineering and test buildings on controlled sites.
• Spratton, Creaton, Cottesbrooke and Chapel Brampton. Ironstone villages to the west, single-track lanes.
• Pitsford, Boughton and Moulton. Towards Northampton, with Pitsford Water between.
• Scaldwell, Hanging Houghton, Lamport, Maidwell, Holcot and Walgrave. The villages to the north and east, estate cottages and thatch in places.

Around Brixworth

We cover the villages too — Spratton, Pitsford, Boughton, Moulton, Holcot, Walgrave, Scaldwell, Hanging Houghton, Lamport, Maidwell, Creaton, Cottesbrooke and Chapel Brampton. Nearby we have pages for Northampton, Towcester and Brackley.