Kent, South East England
Demolition Company and Groundwork Contractors in Kent
Demolition company and groundwork contractors in Kent, from Tunbridge Wells to Thanet. Strip out, piling, site enabling and civils. Call 01424 830613.
Working in Kent
Demolition & Groundworks in Kent
Kent is a short run for The Blackford Group. The A21 from our yard at St Leonards-on-Sea reaches Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge in under an hour, the A259 and the A2070 take us into Ashford and the Romney Marsh, and from there the M20 opens up Maidstone, the Medway towns, Canterbury and the coast. We are a demolition company and a groundworks contractor with eight divisions in-house, and our Kent work runs from strip outs and structural demolition in the towns to bulk excavation, enabling works, roads and drainage on the housing and logistics sites along the motorways.
The county is big and varied, and the ground changes with it. The Weald in the south west, around Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Cranbrook and Tenterden, is sandstone and clay and older market towns with tight centres. The Greensand ridge and the Gault clay run through Maidstone and Sevenoaks, with Kentish ragstone underfoot. The North Downs chalk runs the length of the county from Westerham to Dover, and north of it the Medway towns, Sittingbourne, Faversham and Thanet sit on London Clay, Thanet Sand and the chalk again. The Marsh in the south east is flat, drained ground with a high water table where piling comes into almost everything.
Planning runs through twelve district and borough councils, with Kent County Council as the highways authority and Medway as a unitary authority of its own. Demolition needs a Section 80 notice to the district before it starts, highway licences for skips, hoardings and closures come from Kent Highways or Medway, and the Kent Downs and the High Weald both bring national landscape conditions. We deal with all of it as part of the job.
A lot of Kent work is on a programme other people depend on: logistics sheds along the M20 and the M2, housing at Ebbsfleet, Ashford and Maidstone, regeneration in the Medway towns and on the Thanet coast, and the port and channel traffic at Dover and Folkestone. We bring our own excavators, our own tippers and our own crews, so the sequence is ours to control rather than a hire company's, and a job in Margate or Sevenoaks is a normal day rather than a mobilisation.
Our services
What We Deliver in Kent
Our eight divisions are Demolition, Strip Out, Groundworks, Site Enabling and Remediation, Haulage and Muck Away, Sea Defence, Piling, and Underpinning, with bulk excavation and civil engineering packages under the groundworks banner. On a Kent project that means the strip out, the demolition, the muck away, the remediation and the groundworks run as one programme with one supervisor, instead of four firms and four mobilisations down the M20.
On the ground
What Kent Sites Actually Need.
Five Kinds of Ground in One County
Kent runs through the whole geology of the South East. The Weald around Tunbridge Wells and Tenterden is Hastings Beds sandstone and clay with springs and steep ground. The Greensand ridge through Sevenoaks and Maidstone brings Kentish ragstone that needs a breaker and Gault clay that shrinks and swells. The North Downs are chalk, clean to dig but full of flints and solution features. North of the Downs the Medway towns, Sittingbourne and Thanet sit on London Clay, Thanet Sand and chalk again, and the Marsh in the south east is soft alluvium with a high water table. We price from the ground investigation and put in trial holes where the records are thin, because the method changes with the ground.
Water, Marsh and Made Ground
The Medway at Tonbridge and Maidstone, the Stour at Canterbury and Ashford, the Thames and the Swale on the north coast and the Romney Marsh all bring flood risk and high water tables, so foundations, basements and drainage are designed around water. The dockyard and industrial waterfronts of Medway, Dartford and the ports have made ground, buried structures and contamination that turn a groundworks job into a site enabling and remediation job first.
Historic Towns, Conservation Areas and Neighbours
Canterbury, Rochester, Sandwich, Faversham, Tenterden, Cranbrook and Tunbridge Wells are full of listed buildings and conservation areas, and most of the housing stock in the older towns is terraced or semi detached with a party wall on at least one side. That means demolition and strip out in sequence, temporary works for what stays, dust and noise controlled at source, and machines sized to the street rather than the street closed to suit the machine.
Where we work
Areas We Cover Across Kent
Tunbridge Wells and Tonbridge
The nearest Kent towns to our yard, up the A21. A spa town with a listed centre and a conservation area, a market town on the Medway with flood risk along the river, and housing and commercial growth around both. Careful strip out and demolition, groundworks on sandstone and clay. Tunbridge Wells has its own page.
Ashford
One of the county's biggest growth areas, with housing sites, business parks and logistics along the M20 and the international station. Bulk excavation, cut and fill, adoptable roads and drainage, piling mats and slabs, and demolition of older commercial stock in the town centre. Ashford has its own page.
Maidstone
The county town, on the Medway with ragstone and Gault clay underfoot and large housing allocations around the edge. Strip out and demolition in the centre, groundworks and drainage for new estates, and underpinning on the clay. Maidstone has its own page.
Sevenoaks and Westerham
Commuter towns on the Greensand ridge and the edge of the Downs, with high value housing, estates and tight village centres. Demolition and rebuild of individual houses, basements, underpinning and groundworks with the access planned first.
The Medway Towns
Rochester, Chatham, Gillingham and Strood, a unitary authority with a long waterfront of former dockyard and industrial ground, terraced streets and large regeneration sites. Site enabling and remediation, demolition of older commercial buildings, and groundworks on London Clay and made ground.
Dartford, Gravesend and Ebbsfleet
The Thames-side end of the county, with Ebbsfleet Garden City, the Bluewater and Crossways commercial areas and older industrial and chalk quarry ground. Bulk earthworks, roads and drainage, remediation and slabs for logistics and housing on a programme.
Sittingbourne and Faversham
Towns along the A2 and the M2 with paper mill and industrial history, growing housing and logistics sites, and the marshes of the Swale to the north. Site clearance and remediation, bulk excavation and groundworks, and piling where the ground turns soft towards the estuary.
Canterbury and Whitstable
A cathedral city with a walled centre, two universities and conservation areas, and a seaside town on the north coast. Careful strip out and demolition in the city, groundworks for student and residential development, and coastal and drainage work at Whitstable and Herne Bay.
Thanet: Margate, Ramsgate and Broadstairs
The eastern tip of the county, chalk under the towns, a seafront of Victorian and Georgian stock being brought back into use, and older industrial ground behind the harbour at Ramsgate. Strip out, demolition with neighbours close, and groundworks and sea defence along the front.
Dover, Folkestone and the Marsh
The channel ports and the coast round to Hythe and Romney Marsh. Chalk cliffs and steep ground at Dover, regeneration on the harbour at Folkestone, and flat drained marshland with a high water table where foundations mean piling and drainage means pumps.
Who we work for
Clients We Look After in Kent
Commercial, Logistics and Industrial
Distribution sheds and business parks along the M20, the M2 and the A2, the port hinterland at Dover and Folkestone, and older industrial ground in Medway, Sittingbourne, Dartford and Ashford. Strip out, structural demolition, slab break out, remediation and the bulk earthworks, roads, drainage and slabs for what replaces them, on a programme the main contractor depends on.
Housing and Regeneration
The allocations around Ashford, Maidstone, Ebbsfleet, Sittingbourne and Canterbury, and the waterfront and seafront regeneration in Medway, Folkestone and Thanet. Site enabling, cut and fill, piling mats, adoptable roads and sewers, plot drainage and foundations, phased so plots are released in the order the housebuilder needs them.
Residential and Private Clients
Homeowners, landlords, architects and small builders across the county, from a garage or a rear extension coming down to a whole plot cleared for a new house, basements and underpinning in the commuter towns, and drainage that never matched the drawings. The same survey, sequencing and paperwork apply whatever the size.
FAQs
Kent Questions
The things people in Kent ask us most. If your question is not here, call 01424 830613 and we will answer it straight.
Which parts of Kent do you cover?+
All of it. Tunbridge Wells, Tonbridge, Sevenoaks, Ashford and Maidstone are the closest to our yard, and the Medway towns, Dartford, Gravesend, Sittingbourne, Canterbury, Thanet, Dover and Folkestone are all regular runs. Three of the larger towns have a page of their own on this site, and we work nationwide beyond the county for the right job.
Are you a demolition company or a groundworks contractor?+
Both, and that is the point. The Blackford Group takes a Kent job from a standing building to a finished platform: demolition, strip out, muck away, remediation, piling, groundworks and the drainage and slabs at the end, all with our own teams and our own plant rather than a chain of subcontractors.
Do you handle the council notices and highway licences?+
Yes. Demolition needs a Section 80 notice served on the district or borough council before it starts, skips, hoardings and closures need licences from Kent Highways or from Medway Council in the Medway towns, and anything in a conservation area or the Kent Downs comes with its own conditions. We arrange them and build the lead times into the programme.
Can you work to a fixed programme on a logistics or housing site?+
Yes, and a lot of our Kent work is exactly that: a site along the M20 or the M2 that has to be at formation, with the roads and drainage in, by a date the main contractor or the housebuilder has already committed to. Our own plant and our own lorries are what make those dates hold, and the earthworks are priced from quantities rather than left as a provisional sum.
The site is on the Marsh or by the river. Does that change the method?+
Yes. Soft ground and a high water table mean foundations are usually piled, drainage needs designed outfalls and often pumping, and excavations need support and dewatering. Our Piling and Groundworks divisions work together on that kind of site, to the engineer's design, and we flag it straight away if the ground opened up does not match what the drawing assumed.
How do you price a job in Kent?+
From a site visit and whatever exists already: drawings, structural reports, asbestos surveys, ground investigation. You get a written quote setting out what is included, what is excluded and what would change it. Most of the county is within a normal working day of our yard, so the price does not carry the travel and mobilisation a contractor from further away has to add.
Recent Work
If you have a project anywhere in Kent, whether that is a strip out in Tunbridge Wells, a shed to clear in Ashford, a site to prepare in Maidstone, a house coming down in Sevenoaks or seafront work in Thanet, we are happy to come and look at it. Call 01424 830613 or send the drawings over and we will tell you straight away whether it is a job for us and roughly what it will take.
Planning Work in Kent?
Tell us what you need moving, clearing or building and we will come back with a straight answer and a fair price.