Flat
refurbishment
in Beaconsfield, HP9

One block is singled out in the Old Town conservation area. The appraisal finds the flats at Crossways, four storeys high, not overpowering: partly screened by trees and a hedge, in a Queen Anne style that suits London End and Wilton Farm, on the site of a large early twentieth-century building, and neutral in effect. Work to their outside is judged against that character.

Crossways stands at the east end of London End, where the redevelopment kept mature trees, so scaffold and skips there are planned around them.

Across the old South Bucks district the Core Strategy found that many recent one and two bedroom units came from replacing or converting larger properties into flats. In Beaconsfield, though, saved Policy H10 normally refuses conversion of single dwellings into flats on Penn Road and in the Burkes Road and Gregories Road area, and Policy H8 allows subdivision elsewhere only outside those areas and with enough garden for each unit.

The explanation to H8 says subdivision is generally acceptable only in large, detached properties with enough land for unobtrusive parking, which is worth knowing before proposing to divide a flat again.

A flat over an Old Town shop is likely to sit in an old building: listing is unusually dense in the historic core, and works to one can call for listed building consent. We check the list entry before the strip-out.

The shop below matters as well. The appraisal says that even where shop use has stopped, keeping the shop-front helps hold a building's historic character, and along the four Ends access comes from the street itself, often through a coaching entrance, because the town had no back road.

Sources: South Bucks District Council: Beaconsfield Old Town Conservation Area Character Appraisal (April 2008); Buckinghamshire Council: Conservation areas in Buckinghamshire; GOV.UK: Tree Preservation Orders and trees in conservation areas (planning guidance); South Bucks District Council: South Bucks Core Strategy DPD (adopted February 2011); South Bucks District Council: South Bucks District Local Plan, adopted March 1999, consolidated September 2007 and February 2011; GOV.UK (Planning Practice Guidance): When is permission required?

Most flats are leasehold, held under a lease from the landlord, sometimes called the freeholder. The lease says whether you need permission to make alterations and who is responsible for repairs and for dealing with noisy neighbours, so we read it before drawing a layout.

The householder permitted development rights do not apply to flats, because a building containing flats is not a dwellinghouse for those rules. Internal works and repairs that do not materially affect the outside are not development at all, but a change that does alter how a flat looks from outside, such as new windows of a different pattern, can need planning permission.

Whatever the planning answer, the building regulations can still apply to new windows and doors. In the Old Town the appraisal treats timber sashes as the tradition and plastic frames as out of character, and if the existing windows have trickle vents the new ones should keep them.

Sources: GOV.UK: Leasehold property (printable guide); GOV.UK (MHCLG): Permitted development rights for householders: technical guidance (September 2019); legislation.gov.uk (The National Archives): Town and Country Planning Act 1990, section 55 (meaning of development); GOV.UK: Building regulations approval - when you need approval; South Bucks District Council: Beaconsfield Old Town Conservation Area Character Appraisal (April 2008); GOV.UK: Approved Document F, Volume 1: Dwellings, 2021 edition

Fire safety in a block rests on containing a fire in the flat where it starts and keeping the common escape routes relatively clear of smoke and heat. An entrance door opening onto a common space should reach E 30 S and close itself, and a protected entrance hall of at least REI 30 serving all the habitable rooms is one of the layouts Approved Document B accepts.

Approved Document B treats flats at ground level much like single dwellings and asks for more as height increases, with separate guidance on escape inside the flat and through the common parts to a place of safety.

Requirement E1 asks that flats resist sound from other parts of the same building. For new separating floors Approved Document E notes that a soft covering cuts impact sound at source and warns against hard finishes rigidly fixed to the floor base; we follow the same logic when a carpet gives way to timber or stone.

The floor between two flats is a party structure, and work on one has to be notified to the owner on the other side under the party wall rules.

Our London team, with its own architects, designers and structural engineers and the support of Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building Consultancy, refurbishes Beaconsfield flats out of our Hampstead studio on Finchley Road. Buckinghamshire Council decides any application for planning or listed building consent, while Buckinghamshire Council's building control service, or else a private registered approver, checks the work against the regulations.

We agree working times, lift and stair protection, parking for deliveries and waste removal with the managing agent before work starts, and keep the common parts clean while it runs.

Outside Beaconsfield, and in London rather than Buckinghamshire: Project example: Hampstead, NW3. That project of ours was a full renovation of a three-bedroom, two-bathroom flat in Hampstead, as its case study records.

Sources: GOV.UK (MHCLG): Approved Document B (fire safety) volume 1: Dwellings, 2019 edition incorporating 2020, 2022, 2025 and 2026 amendments and forthcoming 2029 changes; GOV.UK: Approved Document E: Resistance to the passage of sound; GOV.UK: Party walls and building work (printable guide); GOV.UK: Party walls and building work - overview; Buckinghamshire Council: Building regulations and control; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval (printable guide); Hampstead Renovations: The Mount, NW3 case study