Flat refurbishment in Wanstead

Plan the apartment and the shared building together.

Start with the flat refurbishment brief

Start with the lease, floor level, common access and the rooms you want to change. Trace shared drainage and services, identify the floor build-up and establish what the building manager needs before an internal layout is agreed.

Coordinate deliveries, noise, protection of common parts and waste removal with the building arrangements. Keep landlord approvals, design decisions and the construction scope separate so each responsibility is clear.

The local building context

Aldersbrook was first designated in 2002. The Earl of Mornington began developing it in 1899, and the Lake House Estate was built in 1907 to 1911. The October 2020 appraisal recommended adding the estate’s roads, Blake Hall Crescent, Belgrave Road, Windsor Road, Richmond Way and Lake House Road, and the 2023 Local Heritage List says the estate now forms part of the Aldersbrook and Lake House Conservation Area. It lies south of Wanstead Park, abutting Wanstead Flats, with the City of London Cemetery to the east; every house historically had a small front garden, usually behind a brick wall.

Snaresbrook Conservation Area, designated in 1970, runs about a mile from Hollybush Hill to Bedford Road, its 1993 scheme says. Planning Data’s map places listed buildings at 57 Snaresbrook Road, E11, and 23 and 25 Woodford Road, E18, inside it. In 2001 the council called The Drive the heart of the area: separated from Woodford Road by the Woodford Slip green, it has individually designed late Victorian and Edwardian detached houses, from bungalows to three storeys. Wanstead Park Conservation Area includes interwar and slightly later houses on Overton Drive, Blake Hall Road, Draycot Road, Raynes Avenue and Warren Drive.

Snaresbrook Conservation Area spans the E11 and E18 postcode districts, and Wanstead Park and Wanstead Village are the names of council wards as well as conservation areas, so neither a postcode nor a place name settles the council or the controls that apply. The three Article 4 directions on house alterations follow their own lines: one covers numbers 1 to 47 Spratt Hall Road, except the police station, another 2 to 48 The Drive, and a third the whole Aldersbrook and Lake House Conservation Area. For the exact property, confirm the council, then consult its conservation map and Article 4 list, the statutory list, the title or lease, and any earlier applications.

Local design and consent context

Redbridge has 16 conservation areas, and its web page lists guidance for each of the five around Wanstead. Wanstead Village has its March 2006 Character Appraisal and a May 2008 Preservation and Enhancement Scheme meant to be read with it as one supplementary planning document, although the scheme’s own text still describes draft proposals for consultation. Snaresbrook relies on an enhancement scheme adopted on 22 September 1993, and the Wanstead Park Preservation and Enhancement Scheme was adopted by the council’s Cabinet on 8 May 2007.

Appendix 8 of the Local Plan records Wanstead Park as a Historic Park and Garden as well as a conservation area. The City of London Corporation, Conservators and Trustee of Epping Forest, describes Wanstead Park as once a formal landscape surrounding the great Wanstead House, with The Temple there as one of its visitor centres, and Wanstead Flats as a large area of open grassland in the south of the forest and a Site of Special Scientific Interest.

The Borough-wide Conservation Area Management Proposals of 2014 apply as a supplementary planning document. Two points from them are worth knowing before any work: flats have none of the householder rights that houses enjoy, and demolition in a conservation area requires planning permission.

Access and site planning

Redbridge permits construction and building work from 8am to 6pm on weekdays and from 8am to 2pm on Saturdays, and allows no noisy works on Sundays or bank holidays. Above a shop or in a block, tell the managing agent and the neighbours the start date and which weeks will be loudest. In a house, decide with your household whether to stay at home while floors are up and walls are being cut.

Redbridge Council: noise nuisance, with the permitted hours for building work

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The Wanstead area guide · Flat refurbishment across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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