10 years of building stunning properties in London: What has changed over the decade?

Despite the building industry experiencing a challenging time in recent years, Noble Structures is delighted to be celebrating our 10th year in business, delivering high end construction projects in London.

London Presents a Unique Building Challenge

As more people flock to the capital, building sufficient properties to accommodate them has historically been a challenge. With no space to build outwards and planners unwilling to grant permission for loft conversions, many homeowners and investors have incorporated basement construction developments and conversions into their existing properties.

Noble Structures is an Association of Underpinning Contractors (ASUC) registered basement construction company in London. We are proud of our association with ASUC and fully support their aim to promote the awareness of their members’ high standard of workmanship and expertise as well as professional and technical competence. In fact, basement construction within Grosvenor Estate, which makes up London’s Mayfair, Belgravia and Pimlico can only be undertaken by ASUC members.

We focus on the finer details to ensure that every build is unique, flawlessly finished and meets or exceeds our clients’ expectations. Our basements create usable space which feels as though it has always been there. We pride ourselves on creating a light and airy environment that our clients will love to spend time in.

Since our inception in 2013, we have been uniquely positioned to support the delivery of basement conversions and extensions in the London area, allowing homeowners to capitalise on their existing space, add value to their properties and even create self-contained annexes suitable for both the resale and rental markets.

Key milestones and turning points in over the decade

2014 – Record basement applications in London: The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea saw a record 3,374 planning applications for basement extensions and conversions. We joined the Considerate Constructors Scheme and started to help support the growth in basement construction in London.

2015 – Mega basements ban: In 2015, some London borough councils introduced a ban on so-called “mega-basements”, essentially preventing the construction of basements that added more than one storey to an existing property. As the majority of our clientele are private clients wishing to extend their properties, this ban had little effect on our business and we were able to continue apace, helping London homeowners to achieve their dream homes.

2017 – Flash floods: Flash flooding in 2017 created a surge in insurance claims for damaged basement conversions and their contents, to which insurance companies responded by increasing the premiums charged to basement construction contractors, in particular for public liability insurance. This move aimed to motivate contractors into future-proofing their builds and putting measures in place to mitigate any potential environmental conditions that they might experience. In reality, responsible contractors like us already had safety at the forefront of our solutions, so the increased insurance premiums merely reduced our margins.

2020 – COVID & Brexit: This didn’t slow us down, however, and we continued apace, right up until 2020 and the dual effect of the COVID-19 pandemic and BREXIT, which combined to create massive labour shortages within the entirety of the building industry. We adapted to the new restrictions that were introduced for site working, installing COVID testing stations at all of our projects to safeguard everyone involved in the builds. Concurrently, we made best use of our skilled and experienced team to ensure the continuity of our workload.

2022 – Material costs go up: 2022 marked our ninth year in business and having overcome a multitude of challenges, we were then faced with a huge increase in the cost of raw materials, in particular, steel. This was predominantly driven by Brexit induced labour shortages, high energy costs combined and a reduction in European production; forcing us to reluctantly increase our prices in order to remain viable.

A brighter future

As we enter 2023, we are taking the time to reflect on our first ten years in business, which have presented significant challenges to the industry. However, we have overcome all of the issues we have faced and feel that our team is stronger for it. We are also currently working to gain our ISO qualification and look forward to achieving this soon. We have developed a market-leading reputation for delivering high-quality builds and while the cost of living continues to bite in 2023, we anticipate a more positive outlook in 2024 and beyond. We look forward to what the future will bring as we continue working on many more exciting projects over the coming decade.

Awards & recognitions

Since our inception a decade ago, we are proud to have been nominated for and won a number of prestigious industry awards in recognition of the quality of our work and of the efforts of our hard working team. Some of the highlights are listed below:

Some of our projects from the last 10 years