Hard Landscaping
External works built to drawing, to specification, and to programme: paving, paths, fencing, walls, and the groundwork underneath them. A BALI member contractor that turns up with the RAMS done and leaves with the snagging list empty.
BALI Member
What We Do
Commercial hard landscaping is the construction of the built external environment around commercial, public, and residential development sites: paved areas, pathways, access surfaces, boundaries, walls, and street furniture installation, delivered to a specification rather than a sketch. Silver Tree Services builds hard landscaping across Gloucestershire and surrounding counties for developers, principal contractors, facilities teams, schools, healthcare estates, and property managers, as standalone packages or alongside our soft landscaping and grounds maintenance work.
What we build
- Paving and surfacing: natural stone, porcelain, block paving, flag, and gravel surfaces for courtyards, terraces, and pedestrian areas
- Pathways and access routes, including DDA-compliant gradients, edging, and tactile detail where specified
- Car park and surface works: block paved and gravel parking areas, edging, line and bay works through partners where required
- Fencing and boundaries: closeboard, panel, post and rail, security and equestrian fencing, gates and access points
- Walls and retaining structures: brick, block, sleeper, and gabion retaining walls, raised planters, and boundary walls
- Groundworks and drainage: excavation, sub-bases, levels, and surface water drainage that makes everything above it last
- External furniture and finishing: seating, bollards, bin stores, cycle stands, and signage bases
Built to spec, run like a contract
Commercial external works fail at the interfaces: levels that don’t meet thresholds, drainage as an afterthought, landscaping squeezed at the end of a programme. We price from your drawings and specification, flag buildability issues before they’re cast in concrete, and deliver under our ISO 9001 quality system with RAMS, method statements, and a named supervisor on site. Where we follow groundworks or precede planting, we coordinate the handovers properly, and where we hold both the hard and soft packages, the interface risk disappears entirely.
On occupied sites, schools, healthcare, housing, we work in phased, segregated areas with DBS-checked operatives where required, keeping access and fire routes live throughout.
From clearance to completion
Because tree surgery, site clearance, and stump grinding sit in-house, we can take an external works package from vegetated plot to finished surface without a contractor interface in between. As an ISO 14001 certified company, cleared green material is recycled through our biomass operation and excavated spoil is managed responsibly, with the documentation to support your site waste reporting.
Why choose Silver Tree Services
Silver Tree Services has traded for over 20 years from Shurdington, Cheltenham, with 30+ qualified staff across seven specialist teams, ISO 9001 and ISO 14001 certification, ARB Approved Contractor status, and SMAS SSIP accreditation. Crews are NPTC-certificated with IPAF and CSCS where work requires it, RAMS are produced per site, DBS-checked operatives are available for sensitive settings, and public and employers’ liability insurance covers every job. The client list, NHS, Gloucestershire Police, Stroud District Council, Savills, the Church of England, is the vetting evidence.
Areas we cover
Soft washing across Gloucestershire, including Cheltenham, Gloucester, Stroud, Tewkesbury, Cirencester plus surrounding counties and further afield for contract clients.
Pricing
Hard landscaping is priced from drawings and specification, or measured on site where drawings don’t exist. Send us the package and programme dates and we’ll return an itemised tender response; for design-and-build work we’ll survey, propose, and price as one document.
Frequently Asked Questions About Commercial Hard Landscaping
What does commercial hard landscaping include?
It covers the built external environment of a site: paving, pathways, parking surfaces, fencing, gates, retaining walls, raised planters, drainage, and external furniture, constructed to a drawing and specification. Silver Tree Services delivers these packages across Gloucestershire and surrounding counties for developers, contractors, and estates teams, either standalone or combined with soft landscaping and ongoing grounds maintenance so the external works arrive finished and stay maintained.
Can you price from our drawings and specification?
Yes, that’s the standard route. Send the landscape drawings, specification, and programme dates and Silver Tree Services will return an itemised tender response, including any buildability queries raised before pricing rather than discovered on site. Where no drawings exist, we measure on site and produce a priced proposal with the specification written out, so design-and-build clients still get a document they can hold us to.
Do you work on live and occupied sites?
Yes, regularly. Schools, healthcare estates, housing schemes, and operational commercial sites all stay open while external works happen, so Silver Tree Services phases work into segregated areas, maintains pedestrian and fire access throughout, and provides RAMS for every activity. Operatives are DBS-checked where the site requires it, and on schools we’ll programme the heaviest work into holiday windows where the programme allows.
Can the same contractor do clearance, hard works, and planting?
Yes, and it removes the riskiest interfaces in external works. Silver Tree Services runs site clearance, stump grinding, hard landscaping, and soft landscaping in-house, so a plot can go from overgrown to cleared, built, and planted under one contract, one set of RAMS, and one accountable contractor. Levels, drainage, and planting pits are coordinated by the same team rather than negotiated between three subcontractors.
What standards and accreditations do you hold?
Silver Tree Services is a BALI member and holds ISO 9001 (quality) and ISO 14001 (environmental) certification, both externally audited annually, alongside ARB Approved Contractor status for the arboricultural side of the business. We carry public and employers’ liability insurance, provide RAMS and method statements as standard, and our delivery already satisfies the procurement requirements of clients including the NHS, Gloucestershire Police, and Stroud District Council.
How is commercial hard landscaping priced?
From the drawings and specification where they exist, as an itemised package price with measured rates, and from a site survey where they don’t. Cost is driven by materials, areas, groundworks depth, drainage, and access, so two visually similar schemes can price very differently. Silver Tree Services returns transparent, itemised proposals, flags provisional items honestly, and prices variations from an agreed schedule of rates rather than improvising.
Ready When You Are
Built to drawing, handed over clean.
Send the drawings, the spec, and the dates, and we’ll come back with an itemised price and the compliance pack to go with it.
Or call · 01242 472560