Bathrooms Tailored to North London Properties

A North London bathroom usually sits in an older building that a council, and often a landlord, has a say over. The Highgate Conservation Area alone is run by two planning authorities, Camden and Haringey. In Hampstead Garden Suburb roughly 500 buildings are listed in their own right. In Swiss Cottage, the very large Victorian houses were mostly split into flats long ago and stand among substantial mansion blocks, so a large share of work there is leasehold.

Below, council by council: where a new soil pipe may run, when a listed interior needs consent, what a leaseholder must agree first and when noisy work may happen. One design-and-build appointment covers the drawings, the structural checks and the build, with our own architects and engineers based at our Finchley Road studio, Unit 3 Palace Court, NW3 6DN.

Sources: Haringey Council - List of conservation areas in Haringey (+ Camden Highgate CA appraisal page), Hampstead Garden Suburb Trust - Your Property, Camden Council - Article 4 Directions: heritage and conservation

Hampstead's Article 4(1) Direction applies to most properties in the conservation area, but only to their fronts and to sides that face a street, and converted flats are included as well as single houses. Putting a new flue or soil and vent pipe on the front is now a planning matter there. Most of Belsize Park falls inside the Belsize Conservation Area, where Camden's Article 4 controls also apply and stucco fronts, cornices and railings get close attention.

On the land it covers, the direction also catches installing, altering, replacing or taking down a chimney, a flue or a soil and vent pipe on a house where it would be seen from a public highway, a private street or another space the public can use.

Camden's Home Improvements planning guidance wants new pipes kept to side and rear walls where it can be done, bunched together and placed discreetly. In its conservation areas, new outside pipework on a wall or roof slope fronting a road, where that face is the main or a side elevation, would need planning permission.

Islington's conservation guidance notes Article 4 Directions at Canonbury and at Highbury Fields. In Haringey, the 2010 character appraisal for Crouch End said that, at that date, no Article 4 Direction applied there, while noting that permitted development rights are already narrower in any conservation area.

Inside the house we plan the waste route first. A WC wants to sit close to the existing stack; a new stack is drawn on a rear or side wall, or boxed in internally, before any tile is chosen.

Sources: Camden Council: Hampstead Conservation Area Design Guide (updated June 2026), Camden Council - Article 4 Directions: heritage and conservation, Camden Council — Article 4(1) Direction, Hampstead Conservation Area (excluding Frognal Way), confirmed 9 June 2026 (scanned PDF; quotes transcribed from the page images), Camden Council: Home Improvements, Camden Planning Guidance (January 2021), Islington Council, Canonbury (CA08) Conservation Area Design Guidelines (January 2002), Islington Council, Highbury Fields (CA05) Conservation Area Design Guidelines (January 2002), Haringey Council - Crouch End Conservation Area Character Appraisal (No. 5)

Flat owners face a second set of rules in the lease itself. The LEASE advisory service points out that, depending on the wording, a landlord's permission can be required for an alteration whatever the council or building control has approved. One clause it cites, 'no cutting of external walls', would block a new opening for a pipe. And if the landlord owns the floors and ceilings between flats, underfloor heating that runs through another flat needs the landlord's agreement.

• We keep the new bathroom over the bathroom or kitchen below where the plan allows, so a waste run never crosses a bedroom ceiling.
• The waterproofing covers the whole wet zone and is flood-tested before tiling starts.
• Boxing around soil pipes, and any new partition, is packed with acoustic insulation to soften drain noise for the flat below.

Sources: LEASE: alterations and home improvements, LEASE: Alterations and home improvements

Camden's noisy-work window, with no authorisation needed, is 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm on Saturday; Sundays and bank holidays need authorisation. Camden skip licences can be applied for only by a skip company, no less than 5 working days before the licence is needed, and a bay suspension should be booked 17 days or more before it begins.

Islington and Haringey set the same weekday and Saturday hours as Camden; in Islington, noisy work outside them needs the council's approval in advance. Westminster applies the same hours in St John's Wood and allows no noisy works on a Sunday or bank holiday without special permission.

Tile removal, chasing and stone cutting go early in the permitted day.

Sources: Camden Council: noisy building works, Camden Council: skip licence, Camden Council: parking bay suspensions, Islington Council: Other types of pollution (construction pollution), Haringey Council: Noise complaints, Westminster City Council: noise problems we can investigate