Office Fit-Out & Refurbishment Crawley

Yes — in most Crawley commercial buildings, any non-trivial alterations to leased premises require a formal Licence to Alter signed by your landlord before works can begin. This applies across Town Centre buildings like The Create Building and throughout Manor Royal. The submission typically requires architectural drawings, M&E specifications, a Construction Phase Plan, RAMS and proof of contractor insurance. Aviation and defence-sector buildings on Manor Royal may have additional security induction requirements before any contractor accesses the site. We prepare and submit the full LTA package on your behalf and manage it through to sign-off.

Cat A+ — sometimes called "plug and play" or "turnkey" — is a landlord-delivered finish that goes beyond a standard Cat A shell. Rather than leaving the tenant with bare raised floors and an empty ceiling grid, the landlord pre-installs carpet tiles, a kitchenette or tea point, data soft points, feature lighting and a decoration scheme. The tenant moves in and begins work immediately without commissioning a separate fit-out. The Create Building in Crawley town centre sets the local benchmark for this standard. We deliver Cat A+ refurbishments for landlords repositioning assets, and Cat B occupier fit-outs from both Cat A and Cat A+ base conditions.

Costs vary by building type and specification level. For a Cat A+ starting point where carpet and data are already in place, tenant personalisation typically runs £25–40 per sq ft. For a full Cat B fit-out in a Grade A shell such as The Create Building, budget £55–80 per sq ft. High-specification corporate or aviation HQ projects on Manor Royal run £80–130 per sq ft, particularly where 24-hour operational requirements, server rooms with redundant cooling, or AV training suites are involved. Refurbishment of existing Cat B space starts from £30 per sq ft. Out-of-hours working requirements in shared Manor Royal buildings add cost. All ranges exclude VAT and LTA preparation. We provide a fixed-price quote after a free site survey, typically within 3–5 working days.

Manor Royal's Controlled Parking Zone and permit scheme means any unregistered contractor vehicle risks a fine. We pre-register all site vehicles under the scheme before works start. For deliveries along Fleming Way — which has dedicated bus lanes and Superhub bus stops — we identify the correct loading points and obtain any necessary permissions from the Council in advance. Heavy deliveries such as pallet loads of carpet tiles or partitioning systems are routed via the designated HGV loading bays on Faraday Road. In shared buildings, we schedule noisy and disruptive activities outside business hours and comply with mandatory security inductions and ANPR requirements on aviation and defence-sector sites.

UK legislation requires all non-domestic rented buildings to achieve a minimum EPC C by 2027 and EPC B by 2030. Crawley's leading new-builds are already targeting higher ratings, and the Gatwick Green development is setting a new sustainability benchmark across the Gatwick Diamond. We install LED lighting with integrated PIR sensors and daylight harvesting, all-electric HVAC with high-MERV filtration — essential on Manor Royal, where Gatwick's proximity means filters accumulate urban particulate faster than most locations — Cat 6a cabling and smart sub-metering as standard fit-out components. We also specify Econyl recycled-nylon carpet tiles and low-VOC paints as defaults to support BREEAM Excellent targets and corporate ESG reporting.

Potentially — and it is worth investigating early. Section 18(1) of the Landlord and Tenant Act 1927 limits a landlord's dilapidations claim to the amount by which the value of their interest in the property has been diminished. In Crawley, several older Town Centre buildings are earmarked for redevelopment or residential conversion — the Overline House conversion to 306 residential units is the clearest example. Where a landlord intends to demolish or substantially alter a building shortly after a lease ends, they may be legally prevented from claiming the full cost of repairs, because those repairs would add no value to a building heading for conversion. If your building sits within Crawley's regeneration zones or redevelopment pipeline, a Section 18 defence can significantly reduce what you owe. We identify this exposure early and build the supporting evidence before the Schedule of Dilapidations is served.

For smaller suites under 1,000 sq ft where a Cat A+ base is in place, allow 2–4 weeks from LTA sign-off. Full Cat B fit-outs of 1,000–5,000 sq ft in a Grade A shell typically take 6–12 weeks. Corporate HQ or aviation-sector projects on Manor Royal run 12–20 weeks for larger floorplates. The LTA sign-off process takes an additional 2–6 weeks from submission and sits outside the build programme — start early. On Manor Royal sites with shared tenants, out-of-hours phasing extends the effective programme, which we build into the schedule from the start.