A high end Leicestershire development: two large roofs, back to back

The brief

High end plots, where the roof is the elevation

On a volume housing site a roof is a covered box. On a high end development it is a large part of what the buyer is paying for. The plots are bigger, the plans are less regular, the pitches and the ridge lines are more complicated, and the finished roof is a headline feature of the elevation rather than a lid.

That is the sort of development AJB Group has been working on on the outskirts of Leicestershire, and it is the sort of build the company thrives on. The scale of the site was clear enough from the aerial footage taken over it in April 2025: not a dense estate but a set of substantial individual homes, each one big enough to be a project in its own right.

Leicestershire sits outside the three core counties of Lincolnshire, Cambridgeshire and Norfolk, but it is inside the working radius: AJB Group covers up to around two hours from the PE12 area, and Leicestershire is named in that coverage as a regular working county.

What we did

Two large scale roofs, back to back

The centrepiece was a roof installation from the team completing two large scale roofs back to back for Stronghold Homes Ltd. Ashley's own description of the finished pair was that you could almost call it artwork, which for a company that is usually more interested in centres and grades than adjectives says something about how the roofs came out.

Back to back is the operative phrase. Completing two large roofs in sequence, with no gap between them, is a resourcing achievement more than a technical one. It means the second plot was started while the first was being finished rather than after it, which keeps the developer's scaffold, roofing contractor and follow-on trades moving instead of standing waiting for a carpentry gang to become free. Fourteen employed carpenters is what makes that possible: a firm working with a hired gang per job cannot hold two plots at once.

Roofs at this size and specification are also where the choice between a trussed roof and a hand cut roof actually matters. AJB Group builds both, so the recommendation is driven by the geometry and the programme rather than by what the carpenter happens to prefer.

Cladding on a bespoke home

In July 2025 the work extended into cladding, starting on a bespoke home in Leicester. The striking part was the comparison: two identical units, one clad, one not, giving a genuine before and after of what cladding does to an otherwise standard elevation. It is the clearest argument for cladding there is, because you are looking at the same house twice.

Having the same contractor do both the roof and the cladding is not a convenience, it is a technical advantage. Roof and cladding meet at the eaves, the verge and the soffit, and those junctions are where the weather line either works or leaks. When one carpentry contractor holds both, there is no interface to argue about and no gap for water to find.

Documented from the air

The site was recorded from the air as it progressed. Aerial footage is more than marketing on a development like this: it is the only way to actually see how a large roof reads against the rest of the elevation and against the neighbouring plots, and it makes a useful record of the setting out for everybody involved.

The contractor argument

AJB Group is a committed carpentry contractor based in Lincolnshire, covering all aspects of a build so that it runs as smoothly as possible. The pitch to a developer who has had trouble with previous contractors is deliberately unglamorous: employed carpenters, one package, the roofs when they were promised, and somebody to ring who answers.