Introducing S & D Building and Groundworks Ltd

Discover our variety of construction services and principled approach to project management and execution

About Us

S & D Building and Groundworks Ltd was established in 2023 offering an alternative solution to how groundworks projects are traditionally managed and delivered by medium-large organisations.

Founded by the Davies brothers, Sam and Jack, we have set ourselves out to provide a different approach to how services are traditionally offered to clients in our industry - derived from learnings from our collective experience of over three decades.

Our goal is to gain repeat business and build lasting partnerships with an exclusive club of clients, who have experienced and are aligned with the benefits our business model.

Our Approach

Personal Management

Each project is personally managed by Sam or Jack. This means we are limited to fulfilling a certain number of contracts at any one time, but instead are ordinarily resident on your project day-to-day. This ensures the highest level of accountability at Director level and optimal outcomes on-site, with decisions made swiftly and without red tape.

Custom Delivery & Service

We are able to tailor ourselves to meet specific needs of any client. There are no rigid processes or procedures that larger organisations tend to have, and no layers of management and numerous people to contend with. From initial enquiry to completion and beyond, you and your site project teams will only ever deal with the Directors.

Superior Solutions & Experience

Being so intricately involved in each project allows us vastly more control over on-site operations - particularly vetting of our on-site teams, workmanship and project team relations. This establishes tighter control, better compliance, superior QA and an all round better client experience. We don't run our projects from an office, we run them from site - where it matters the most.

Our Services

We offer a range of services including groundworks, building, civil engineering, and construction project management

  • - Design & build
  • - Early engagement & value engineering
  • - Enabling works
  • - Site & ground investigations, appraisals and exploratory works
  • - Topographical and drone surveys
  • - Foundations & sub-structure / oversite works
  • - Sub-structure brickwork
  • - Roadworks
  • - Surface and foul water drainage
  • - Attenuation / SUDS
  • - Specialist drainage, swales, rain gardens, balancing ponds
  • - External works
  • - Landscaping
  • - Project management and consultancy

Case Studies in Brief

New Agricultural Grain Store

Wakefield, Leeds

Project value c. £100k

External Yard Redevelopment

Purfleet, Essex

Project value c. £400k

Plastic Recycling Facility

Royton, Oldham

Project value c. £75k

Town Centre Townhouses

Stratford-Upon-Avon, Birmingham

Project value c. £25k

Grain Store

Holt, Norfolk

Project value c. £20k

Town Parish Council

Stansted, Essex

Project value c. £25k

GeoCell Retaining Wall

Broxbourne, Herts

Project value c. £45k

Springfields Ph1 & Ph2

Goff's Oak, Herts

Project value c. £250k

Ashfields

Goff's Oak, Herts

Project value c. £100k

Partner With Us

Expertise

Our wider team is a mix of different skills and know-how within construction - our backgrounds help us make sure we deliver results. Our years in this business have given us the tools to handle all sorts of challenges and provide great outcomes for our clients. Whether it's building homes, offices, or agricultural buildings, we're all about coming up with effective solutions for every project we take on and providing results that bring repeat business.

Personal Touch

Direct involvement of directors in every project 24/7. Having directors actively involved on-site and hands-on in every project we take on is the basis of our business model. Our participation makes sure we keep things first-class from start to finish. We can control every aspect, make quick decisions and tackle any issues that arise right away. This way of working enhances the quality of everything we do, say and and deliver, and creates a unique morale within our teams who help us deliver our best results.

Quality

Poor quality costs everybody time and money in an industry which there seems to be less and less of. Our work is most often installed personally by a director and where not, supervised or QA'd by a director. We don't aim to meet the usual basic quality expectations, we aim to eliminate snags and remobilisation to rectify - saving all of us time and money that we don't have. This is one principle central to how we operate. Snags appear to have become an accepted norm in our industry - let's make that a thing of the past.

Efficiency

Whilst we would all like projects completed ahead of programme, we do not sacrifice our quality in doing so - this only creates more work for later, eroding time won on initial programme. We give an honest opinion on what can be acheived within proposed time frames ensuring we have sufficient time to deliver the correct result, first time - this transpires to being the most dependable and efficient method of working for the Client and follow on trades.

New Agricultural Grain Store

We were engaged, without architectural design or engineered drawings, to provide groundworks to a new large 3-bay grain store and associated external access.

We brought an initial hand drawn sketch to life, consulting with the agricultural owner and advising on cost effective solutions, including drainage strategy and cut and fill works, helping to locate the building in the preferred location.

Our works consisted of

External Yard Redevelopment

A bespoke solution for a unique client need. This project provided us with an opportunity to consult, design and help redevelop a 6000m2+ commercial yard, all beginning from a simple enquiry to break-out and crush the existing concrete hardstanding.

Engaging with the Client from early conception stage through to design, appraisals, exploratory works, delivery and handover, we provided a design and groundworks solution that met their specific needs and within budget, without any need to breakout the existing hardstanding requested in their initial enquiry.

Our works consisted of

Plastic Recycling Facility

Our Client was expanding their recycling facility requiring groundworks for a new 70mx14m steel framed building.

Despite environmental and planning difficulties delaying the construction phase, and ultimately shortening the programme, we consulted effectively with the Client and worked diligently once on-site to still deliver our packages within their deadline, whilst their facility remained fully operational.

We again working collaboratively, successfully mitigatated the need for exhaustive break-out and cart-away of the existing hardstanding which the Client had expected and budgeted to be the case.

Our works consisted of

Town Centre Townhouses

This tricky project in the town centre of Stratford-upon-Avon was both a challenge and satisfying to deliver. Engaged on a consultancy and labour only basis we installed foundations to 8 new townhouses under logistically difficult circumstances.

Plot 1's foundation in-particular (abutting an existing building, for later refurbishment into commercial space) consisted of a 3-tier / 3-stage pour design, being a cantilevered ground beam tied into pad foundations below, which in turn were poured on a mass fill foundation base. The remaining foundations were continuous RC strip, stepped to each plot's change in FFL and tied into Plot 1's ground beams.

The only site access was via a 3.5 ton weight limit passage less than 3m wide between two existing buildings, limiting all site deliveries via van or transit tipper only. All concrete was line pumped through an existing building, with permits needing to be obtained for the concrete pump to setup in an adjacent layby on the High St.

Our works consisted of

Grain Store

Expansion of a family farm saw us engaged to deliver the foundations and groundworks to a new grain store following recommendation.

Our works consisted of

Town Parish Council

We were engaged to a local parish council to provide groundworks for a new bellmouth entrance to an existing community recreational ground.

Our scope included liasion with Essex Highways and facilitating a Minor Works Application on behalf of the client, in order to tie into the existing carriageway at a future date.

Our works consisted of

GeoCell Retaining Wall

We were engaged to install a c. 125LM geocell retaining wall as part of a 35 unit new build development. Our scope eventually expanded to include certain external works elements to 8 nr units.

Our works consisted of

Springfields Ph1 & Ph2

We were awarded the SW & FW sewers package for Ph1 of a 14 unit 5 bed new build development. Following successful installation of sewers at infrastructure stage, we went on to undertake all further plot drainage works and connections into main sewers, with continuation onto Ph2 thereafter.

Our works consisted of

Ashfields

Following successful completion of works at Ph1 Springfields we were awarded the SW & FW sewers package for a repeat client on a further 8 unit 4 bed new build development.

Our works consisted of

Establishing ourselves in the market

£1m+

Turnover since inception

33

Successful projects from £5k to £400k

9

Satisfied clients with repeat business

Meet The Team

Our Core Team

Sam, Jody, Jake, Hadley, Jake & Jack

Our core team consists of 2x 3 man gangs. Each gang is headed up by Sam/Jack along with our long-standing plant operators and groundworkers. Additional known and vetted resource is available to be called upon as workload dictates. Within each gang multiple qualifications are held such as CSCS NVQ6/7, CPCS excavator/dumper/roller, SSSTS/SMSTS, first aid, cat & genny, IOSH managing safely and many more, ensuring we are compliant with all statutory and client requirements, and that our work is undertaken correctly and safely.

Sam Davies ICIOB CMILT BSc (Hons)

Sam joined the industry in 2007 as a trainee quantity surveyor for an established groundworks and civil engineering contractor. Alongside being awarded a First Class Honours Degree in Construction Management, Sam went on to procurement, plant, transport and senior management roles for other large groundwork contractors. Sam also spent 5 years with a large housing developer, culminating in the role as Construction Director for the MMC subsidiary, specialising in panelised modular housing delivery with light gauge steel framing systems and infill panels, along with modular bathrooms, kitchens and wardrobe products

Jack Davies

Jack started out in 2011 as a greenkeeper which soon saw him working internationally on renowned courses. It is here Jack learnt the underpinning principles of groundworks and later became a construction worker on the Sydney Light Rail. Travelling back to the UK, Jack joined a large groundworks and civil engineering contractor in 2017 initially starting out as a groundworker, swiftly followed by a supervisory role, then as Site Manager for a 90 unit Taylor Wimpey scheme - with his time there culminating as Project Manager for a 194 unit Bellway Homes scheme from commencement to handover

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