Kitchen worktops in Elephant and Castle

Yes. Split between new regeneration flats with compact open-plan kitchens along one wall and a 1.8m breakfast peninsula, and ageing 1960s and 1970s blocks with tiny closed kitchens where the whole job is a 2m replacement top plus upstands. Loading exemptions on red routes are narrow, time-limited and heavily camera-enforced, so we plan around them rather than relying on them. Splashbacks are normally the last thing off, so a short parking window is exactly when they get rushed. One trip is always better than three.

1960s slab block, 1970s council estate, 2010s regeneration apartment and Georgian terrace pockets. Walls are dense in-situ concrete or blockwork with a thin skim, which will not be chased back and will not take a plasterboard fixing. The stairwell half-landing is usually the tightest point on the whole route and it dictates the maximum piece. That is the shape of the day.

Major junction and gyratory with red routes on the approaches, so vans get pushed onto side streets; new blocks have booked lifts, old blocks have a single lift per core serving a lot of flats. A car that takes 2.4m on the diagonal will not take a three-metre worktop however it is stood, and there is no trimming it on the landing. Finding it out on the morning costs the whole slot, because there is no second route to fall back on. None of it is worked out on the doorstep.

Worktop replacement, worktop installation and worktop splashbacks & upstands, in that order. Rear and side-return extensions are where the islands appear, and an island is the piece that decides whether one slab does the kitchen or two. Splashbacks and upstands are cut from the same slab run at the same time, which is the only way the batch actually matches. Same batch, same run, same day. Old block kitchens are so tight that a 3m slab cannot be turned in the hall - measure the doorway swing before promising a single piece.

Two parallel runs with a walkway between them is the most efficient shape there is on a slab, because both pieces nest as straight lengths with almost no waste. A layout that has been packed and levelled run by run instead of to one datum shows as a step where two pieces meet. The join is the last thing finished. Boxing is rarely the same depth at worktop height as it is at floor level, so measuring it low down is the usual reason a top will not sit back. A tall panel that fits at the worktop will stand off the wall at the top unless the wall is dubbed out or the panel is scribed. Make the wall good first, or accept the detail. Material runs from £110 per square metre supply only, and templating, fabrication and fitting are quoted on their own lines rather than rolled into one figure.

Consent for the work sits with the freeholder or the managing body, and getting it in writing first avoids a crew arriving to a locked door. Splashbacks are cut from the same slab run as the tops, so they have to be decided before fabrication, not after. The wall has to be ready. Tell us the building when you book and the lift, the stair turn and any freeholder notice get built into the day rather than found on it.