Hardman says the company has received a “steady stream” of inquiries, with demand from India, Canada, the Middle East and the UK.
But he believes the UK still needs to “wake up” to the need to improve its preparedness for war.
“If you’re in a targeted area like London and you get a detonation half a mile up in the sky from a nuclear bomb, everything within 15 miles of that detonation is gone,” he says.
A basic overground shelter starts at around £120,000, while a full underground bunker commands a minimum of £300,000, with premium installations incorporating wine cellars, gyms, offices and saunas.
Across Europe, entry-level bunkers purportedly run to between €3,000 (£2,590) and €5,000 per sq metre – comparable to buying a city-centre flat.
‘There’s been a massive change’
Prominent celebrities said to have installed panic rooms at their British homes include the Beckhams and George and Amal Clooney.
American tech billionaires have taken it a step further, with Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg installing a 5,000-sq-ft underground shelter at his compound in Hawaii with its own energy and food supplies and blast-resistant doors.
OpenAI’s Sam Altman has a reinforced concrete basement under his home, while Peter Thiel, the billionaire chairman of Palantir, previously filed plans for a bunker-style compound in New Zealand.
As we are speaking, Weldon is preparing to travel to a project in Europe, the details of which he declines to share, except that the client is spending around £2m on it.
But he says that, on the whole, installing sheltered spaces is no longer necessarily a perk for the rich.
One homeowner client, whose identity was not disclosed, is spending £32,000 to reinforce his home, a “small, out-of-the-way” property worth about £250,000.
Another couple in a city outside London, “not multimillionaires, but working people”, recently had an overground shelter fitted behind their house.
“In the early days, our client base was the rich and famous, but there’s been a massive change,” he says. “It’s coming down. People want protection, if they can afford it.”
