Scaffolding Luton

Scaffolding in Luton

Luton is about an hour and a quarter from our yard at Enslow and it is the biggest town in Bedfordshire by a distance. It is a Victorian industrial town built on hats and then on cars, with an airport on top of the hill, four or five distinct kinds of housing, and its own council with its own licence. Most of our work here is commercial and industrial, and the page is written that way round.

Hats, cars, an airport, and five conservation areas

Luton grew on straw plaiting and hat making, and the Plaiters’ Lea conservation area — the Hat District — still has the three- and four-storey brick factories and warehouses that built it, many now converted or waiting to be. High Town Road, the town’s earliest suburb, is a second conservation area of Victorian shops and bay-windowed terraces in local brick; the town centre is a third; Rothesay and Luton South are the two residential ones. Around them the town is terraces, the inter-war semis of Stopsley, Leagrave and Round Green, the post-war estates at Farley Hill and Marsh Farm, and the newer housing out towards Wigmore and Butterfield.

Then there is the airport. London Luton Airport sits on the hill to the east, and the industrial estates and office parks that feed it — Capability Green, Butterfield Park, the Eaton Green and airport-side units — are where most of our Luton work is.

• In the terraces the question is access. No side return, so material goes through the house or over from the street, and the lorry stands on a narrow road with permit parking.
• In the Hat District the question is height and the licence. Four-storey brick on a narrow pavement means a Luton Borough Council licence, pedestrian protection and an engineer’s design rather than a standard lift.
• On the estates the question is the building. Portal frames with cladding that will not take a tie, so freestanding or kentledged designs, inductions and the site’s hours.
• Near the airport the question is the crane. Lifts inside the safeguarding zone need clearance before the day, and we put that at the start of the programme rather than the end.

Approvals: Luton Borough Council, and what its licence actually requires

• Luton Borough Council is the highway authority for the whole of Luton. It is a unitary authority separate from Central Bedfordshire — Dunstable and Houghton Regis, a mile west, are a different council with a different form — and separate from Bedford Borough. One council for the licence and the planning questions.
• A scaffold on any public road, verge or pavement needs a licence under section 169 of the Highways Act 1980, applied for through the council’s street works service. Allow ten working days. The application wants a site plan, the scaffolder’s accreditation and a public liability certificate with at least £10 million of cover — which we carry.
• The fee is charged per 28 days or part of one, with a refundable deposit returned on written application after the scaffold is down and the highway inspected. A scaffold that drifts past its planned strike date costs another period.
• Five conservation areas — the town centre, Plaiters’ Lea, High Town Road, Rothesay and Luton South. Scaffolding itself rarely needs consent; fixings into a listed front and the work the scaffold serves often do.
• Airport safeguarding. Crane lifts near London Luton Airport are consulted on before the day. It is a programme item, not a scaffold item, but it is the one that catches people out.

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

What we put up in Luton

• Commercial — the town centre and Hat District buildings trading underneath, the offices at Capability Green, the schools and the university buildings, worked around the people inside them.
• Industrial — Butterfield, the airport-side estates and the M1 corridor sheds where there is nothing to tie into and the programme belongs to the site.
• Re-roofs and chimney work — the staple on the terraces and the semis.
• Repointing and facade repair — Victorian brick on the terraces and the factories, longer hires and a licence planned in 28-day periods.
• Domestic — extensions, loft conversions, rendering, windows and solar across Stopsley, Leagrave, Round Green and Wigmore.
• Temporary roofs — weather protection on a winter re-roof or a factory conversion that has to stay dry.

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 four-storey factory frontage, a pedestrian tunnel or a temporary roof puts you outside it and into an engineer’s design.
• 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 Luton job the number moves on:

• How much scaffold and how high — a four-storey hat factory is a different scaffold from a Stopsley semi.
• Duty class — what the work actually loads the platform with.
• Highway licence — charged in 28-day periods in Luton, so the hire period and the licence period are planned together.
• Pedestrian protection — a fan or a tunnel on a narrow town-centre pavement.
• Access — a terrace with no side return, permit parking, or a shared drive on the estates.
• Crane clearance — near the airport, a lead time rather than a cost, but it moves the programme.
• Distance — Luton is the edge of our area, so we group it with Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard and price honestly for the travel rather than hiding it.

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

Questions we get asked here

Scaffolders in Luton, and what hiring us involves

Luton is about an hour and a quarter from Enslow, and we run it with Dunstable and Leighton Buzzard as the southern end of our Bedfordshire round. Scaffolding hire in Luton is a hire period with erection and strike included and an honest extension cost if the job runs on.

• Luton Borough Council is the highway authority. A scaffold on the footway needs their licence; we apply and allow the ten working days.
• Free quotation and site visit. Photographs are usually enough on the estates; in the town centre, the Hat District or near the airport we come and look.
• Hire in weeks — four to eight typically.
• CISRS-qualified scaffolders, £10 million public liability, scafftags and recorded inspections.

Commercial and industrial scaffolding in Luton

This is most of what we do in Luton. Commercial work is the town centre and the Hat District — occupied, often listed, trading underneath, so gantries, pedestrian protection and out-of-hours erection — plus Capability Green, the schools and the university. Industrial work is Butterfield Park, the airport-side units and the M1 corridor: portal frames, cladding, freestanding or kentledged designs, inductions, the site’s own permits and, near the airport, crane clearance. See commercial scaffolding and industrial scaffolding.

Where in Luton we work

• The town centre, Plaiters’ Lea and High Town. Victorian brick factories, shops and terraces in the three commercial conservation areas; narrow pavements, licence and pedestrian protection on every frontage.
• Bury Park, Dallow and the station streets. Terraces with no side access, fed from the street.
• Stopsley, Round Green, Leagrave and Limbury. Inter-war semis and the old village cores.
• Farley Hill, Marsh Farm, Lewsey and Hockwell Ring. Post-war estates, repeated house types.
• Wigmore, Butterfield and the airport side. Newer housing, the business parks and the industrial units under the approach.
• Capability Green and the M1 junctions. Offices and distribution.

Around Luton

Dunstable and Houghton Regis are a mile west under a different council, and Caddington, Slip End and the Chilterns villages sit just outside the town. Nearby we have pages for Dunstable, Leighton Buzzard, Bedford and the county page for Bedfordshire.