A mini-JCB, what every iceberg home needs

IT HAS become a fashionable home improvement among wealthier London property owners, whose “iceberg homes” contain underground swimming pools, sports cars and gyms.

Now the basement excavation craze in the capital could be given a further lease of life by the creation of a “shrunk down” digger.

JCB has started selling a new model that is 35 per cent smaller than its traditional vehicles. The company said the smaller 3CX Compact model will be able to navigate tight lanes and areas where buildings stand in close proximity. The new backhoe loader is three yards high (2.74 metres), down from the normal 4.3 yards, (four metres).

Lord Bamford, chairman of JCB, said: “It was the backhoe [digger] that built JCB into the company that it is today and made us famous around the world.

“More and more of our customers have been telling us that they need a backhoe loader that is smaller simply because they are operating in congested towns and cities and on narrow streets.”

Home owners have begun expanding their properties downwards as house prices have soared in the capital. In expensive west London boroughs such as Fulham, Kensington and Wandsworth, it is seen as one of the cheapest ways to add value and space for an expanding family.

Figures last summer, when house prices were rising even more rapidly than today, showed the number of applications for basement excavations were doubling each year in Kensington and Chelsea. Applications involving basements had risen 42 per cent in Hammersmith and Fulham and 34 per cent in Wandsworth in two years, council planning data showed.