House surveys in East Midlands

The East Midlands has some of the most varied housing in England for a region of its size. Red-brick Victorian terraces dominate the older parts of Derby, Nottingham, Leicester and Northampton, built for workers in lace, hosiery, footwear, engineering and the railways. Around them sit huge rings of 1930s semis, post-war council estates and, since the 1990s, large new-build developments on the edges of almost every town. In the countryside the building stone changes every few miles: gritstone and limestone in the Peak District, golden ironstone in Northamptonshire and Rutland, and pale limestone in Stamford and south Lincolnshire.

For surveys, the big regional themes are ground and water. The Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire coalfield and the smaller Leicestershire coalfield leave a mining legacy across a broad belt of towns, the Trent, Soar, Derwent, Nene and Witham all have extensive flood plains, and the Lincolnshire Fens are low-lying land kept dry by pumps and drains. Northamptonshire, Rutland and the Peak District include areas affected by radon. Older stone and listed properties are common, which often makes a Level 3 Building Survey the sensible choice outside the main estates.