Brighton and Hove sit in one of the harshest envelope-exposure zones in the south — salt-laden onshore winds eat through cheap coatings inside a decade. We've been specifying and installing genuine coastal-spec metal envelopes across the BN postcodes for years, on industrial, retail and hospitality estate buildings.
Brighton and Hove's commercial fabric is a mix of inland light-industrial estates — principally Hollingbury and Patcham up off the A23 — alongside a much larger stock of retail, hospitality and leisure buildings stitched through the urban core and the seafront. Add the Hove industrial estate to the west and the Lewes Road / Moulsecoomb corridor to the east, and you've got a varied commercial roofing market that's united by one common factor: every building is within a couple of miles of the sea.
That coastal proximity matters more than most clients realise. Standard polyester (PE) coated steel sheets that perform fine for 25 years in the Midlands will look chalky and start rusting at cut edges within 8–12 years in a BN1 or BN3 postcode. For Brighton and Hove work we specify PVDF (Kynar 500/Hylar 5000) coatings as standard, plenty of clients ask for plastisol on the leeward elevations and PVDF on the sea-facing slopes, and we'll match galvanising grades and fixing materials to the BS EN ISO 12944 corrosivity category for coastal sites (C4 or C5-M depending on exposure).
We work across the full range of commercial envelope projects in Brighton: full strip-and-re-roof on aged industrial sheds, over-cladding on still-serviceable substructures, retail and hospitality roof refurbishment, and asbestos cement replacement on the older Hollingbury and Patcham stock. We're a Kent-based contractor but Sussex has been a core service area for decades — the A26 / A27 route gets us into Brighton in around 90 minutes.
The A23-corridor industrial estates carry plenty of 1970s and 80s profiled-metal stock that's reached end of life. Full re-roofs and over-cladding in coastal-grade PVDF.
The Hove industrial belt to the west has its own concentration of trade-counter and small-unit stock. Multi-tenant projects phased around occupied operators.
Brighton's edge-of-centre retail parks — large flat-pitched envelopes with significant rooflight areas. Non-fragility upgrades and over-cladding.
Hotels, restaurants and leisure venues with large kitchen plant areas, parapets and complex flashing details. Discreet, occupied-site working.
A growing sector along the A27 fringe. New cold-roof envelopes specified for coastal exposure with appropriate corrosion category fixings.
The older Hollingbury and Patcham stock still carries plenty of asbestos cement sheeting. Asbestos strip and full envelope replacement. More on asbestos →
"Our previous roof was 14 years old and already streaking with rust on the south-facing pitches — you could see it from the street. New-Cladd were the only contractor who actually talked to us about corrosion categories and PVDF versus plastisol rather than just quoting a sheet. The new envelope went up over two phases around our trading week and looks like it'll genuinely see out the next 30 years."
All of BN1, BN2 and BN3 across Brighton and Hove, plus the wider BN postcode area — Worthing (BN11–BN14), Shoreham (BN43), Lancing (BN15) and Lewes (BN7–BN8). We also work across East Sussex into Eastbourne (BN20–BN23) and Hastings (TN postcodes).
PVDF (Kynar 500 / Hylar 5000) holds colour and resists chalking dramatically better than standard polyester or plastisol in salt-air exposure. On a BN postcode building it's the difference between a sharp envelope after 25 years and a faded, rust-streaked one after 12. For envelope-critical projects we'll quote both options so you can see the cost difference.
Around 90 minutes via the A26 and A27 from our mid-Kent base. We programme Brighton jobs as multi-day runs rather than daily commutes, so the team is on site from first thing through the working day.
Yes. We work to BS EN ISO 12944 corrosivity categories and will specify the appropriate envelope, fastener and flashing materials for C4 (high) or C5-M (very high, marine) atmospheric corrosion. This isn't an upsell — for genuinely coastal buildings it's what the standard requires.
Yes — a lot of our Brighton work is phased and out-of-hours by necessity. Night and weekend working, dust-controlled methods, and noise-managed sequencing are all standard parts of our approach on occupied retail and hospitality sites.
