Shepherd and Sons Ltd
Surfacing Contractors in London
London is our largest concentration of work outside Kent, and it is not one working environment but dozens. We work from Little Westerhill Farm on Westerhill Road in Linton, a few minutes south of Maidstone. That is where the plant lives and where a crew starts the day. From there the whole of Greater London is a normal working distance, and most of our London work is done inside a closure, a possession or an occupied building.
The plant rules are the first question, not the last
Every diesel machine between 37 and 560kW that we bring into Greater London has had to meet Stage IV of the Non-Road Mobile Machinery standard since 1 January 2025, and inside the Central Activity Zone that has been the requirement since 2020. Every machine must be on the site's NRMM register before it runs, and borough enforcement officers check on site. From 1 January 2030 the standard becomes Stage V.
That governs more than paperwork. It is why so much London work is done on electric rigs and hydraulic power packs rather than petrol, and it is worth asking any contractor quoting for London work to confirm both the standard and the registration before the programme is agreed.
Access changes street by street
Low traffic neighbourhoods, modal filters, parking suspensions, conservation areas, delivery windows and goods lift dimensions all decide what plant can reach the work. A route that looks obvious on a map may be closed to motor traffic partway along. We plan London access street by street rather than postcode by postcode, and the parking suspension is usually the thing that decides whether a date holds.
What we do here
Concrete cutting and wall sawing for structural openings in occupied buildings. Core drilling for services and investigation. Joint sealing on car park decks, podium slabs and service yards, where the choice between hot and cold applied is often decided by whether a boiler can run at all. Car park line marking across retail, commercial and multi-storey decks.
The districts
We have written up the twelve districts where the constraints differ most, from the Central Activity Zone at Bankside and Blackfriars to the industrial Lea Valley at Freezywater and the live hospital estate at Whipps Cross. Each one is about that place rather than a template with the name swapped.