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Edgware and Canons Park HA8 · Flat refurbishment

Flat refurbishment in Edgware and Canons Park

Flats over shops, purpose-built blocks and council-owned homes

Edgware’s flats sit in very different buildings: above the shops of Harrow’s Edgware High Street conservation area and Barnet’s Station Road, in the blocks Harrow describes at Edgware Court and on Donnefield Avenue, and on council estates; Barnet’s register also records applications to make flats inside listed buildings. Each comes with a different mix of planning, lease and landlord consents. Start by confirming the council, the freeholder and whether the building is listed.

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Flat refurbishment in Edgware and Canons Park at a glance

For a flat above a shop in Harrow’s Edgware High Street conservation area, the appraisal says that, because the buildings there are flats and commercial properties, planning permission is required for almost all external alterations, apart from certain satellite dishes. The same appraisal guides new doors to the upper floors and first-floor windows. Across the road, Barnet’s register records an application made in 2021 at a building on Barnet’s side of the High Street to add a flat in the roof, with two rear dormers and three conservation rooflights, approved subject to conditions. Ask which council decides before anything is drawn.

Harrow: Edgware High Street Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy, December 2013 (PDF) · Barnet planning register: public access search (planning, building control and licensing)

For the whole area, including conservation areas, permissions and working hours, read our Edgware and Canons Park renovation guide.

Approved guide prices

What does a flat refurbishment cost in Edgware and Canons Park?

A flat refurbishment in Edgware and Canons Park runs £900–£1,700/sqm excluding VAT, and a full two-bedroom refurbishment typically lands between £60,000 and £110,000. Most programmes take 16–32 weeks on site. A written scope and site assessment are needed before any project price can be fixed.

Scope of workGuide rateTypical total
Full flat refurbishment (2-bed)£900–£1,700/sqm£60,000–£110,000
Typical programme16–32 weeks on site

Guide rates exclude VAT and are set by depth of work, not by postcode. Compare scopes in our London refurbishment cost-per-square-metre guide or try the cost calculator.

The buildings

Flats over shops, purpose-built blocks and council estates

Harrow’s and Barnet’s records describe flats over shops, purpose-built blocks and homes owned by the councils, and show applications to make flats inside older buildings.

Harrow’s 2011 Character Assessment describes blocks on the Harrow side. The two Donnefield Avenue mansion blocks are brick and modernist, each with a central three-storey section under a hipped roof between two-storey flat-roofed wings, behind deep green forecourts edged with hedging. Edgware Court’s blocks are white rendered with Crittall windows, each on a T-shaped plan with balconies to the upper flats at the rear, and the Lodge Close blocks are brick with a mansard-style top floor. On Harrow’s side of Stonegrove, flats were built piecemeal as large houses were redeveloped, and their rear communal gardens tend to be small.

Harrow: Character Assessment of Harrow’s Residential Areas, 2011 (PDF)

Barnet’s Local Plan allocates Edgware Town Centre for residential-led mixed use; its existing uses include residential, and proposals must consider existing residents. Barnet’s register records applications to make flats inside older buildings: one made in 2007 to turn hotel bedrooms on parts of the first and second floors of the grade II listed Railway Hotel into four flats, and one made in 2013 to convert the Abbey building of the listed Convent of St Mary at the Cross into two houses and two flats. Both were approved subject to conditions.

Barnet Local Plan 2021–2036, adopted 4 March 2025: the plan and its adoption documents · Barnet planning register: public access search (planning, building control and licensing) · Planning Data: Railway Hotel, listed grade II · Planning Data: Convent of St Mary at the Cross, listed grade II

Barnet Homes’ 2017 stock listing records tenanted council flats and houses in the then Edgware Ward, among them on Bushfield Crescent, Meadfield and Warrens Shawe Lane. Barnet’s register records that an application made in 2011 to extend the time for reserved matters under the outline permission for redeveloping the Stonegrove and Spur Road Estates, described as replacing 603 homes with 937 new ones, was approved subject to conditions; Planning Data records a 2003 Barnet tree order named for the same estates. Harrow’s inspection list includes an estate called Stonegrove Gardens, so check the address and which council is your landlord.

Barnet open data: tenanted properties managed by Barnet Homes (Barnet Homes Stock Listing 2017) · Barnet planning register: public access search (planning, building control and licensing) · Planning Data: Barnet tree preservation order, Spur Road and Stonegrove Estates and Edgware School, 2003 (TRE/HE/76) · Harrow Council: council estate inspections and projects, 2026/27 list

Permissions and local rules

Consents for an Edgware flat

Flats over the High Street shops

What does Harrow’s appraisal ask of the upper floors?

Harrow’s High Street appraisal says any extra door needed to reach the upper floors should match the rest of the shopfront, normally next to the main door or at the opposite end. The most frequent first-floor window has a vertical emphasis with narrow glazing bars, in a mix of sashes and casements. At the back, the appraisal regrets that flat-roofed rear extensions have all but hidden the timber-framed buildings, and Harrow’s 2013 SPD notes pressure for external flues and extra accommodation behind the food and drink outlets.

Harrow: Edgware High Street Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Strategy, December 2013 (PDF) · Harrow: Stanmore and Edgware Conservation Areas Supplementary Planning Document, December 2013 (PDF)

If Harrow Council is your landlord

Harrow Council’s leaseholders bought their flat or maisonette from the council under Right to Buy, or later from an earlier owner; the land is not theirs, and the council keeps looking after the structure and the estate’s shared areas. Before changing anything in the flat, a Harrow Council leaseholder needs written permission from its Housing department. That permission does not replace planning or building control: some work needs planning permission as well, and where building control is needed the leaseholder applies for it and pays.

Harrow Council: leaseholders of council flats and maisonettes · Harrow Council: home alterations permission for leaseholders

If Barnet Council is your landlord

Barnet Homes acts for Barnet Council as landlord, and its improvements page treats its written consent to internal alterations or improvements as mandatory: going ahead without it can breach the lease, and planning permission or building control approval may be needed too. Where the lease allows, its guidance lists layout changes it may agree to, such as a 1-bed becoming a 2-bed or taking out walls that carry no load. Barnet Homes usually turns down changes to front entrance doors and new laminate floors, which it normally accepts only at ground level, unless the lease already provides for them.

Barnet Homes: leaseholder home improvements (for Barnet Council leaseholders) · Barnet Homes: guidance on making alterations to leasehold properties, October 2021 (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

Converting a house into flats

In Harrow, Local Plan policy HO2 requires, among other things, each home made by converting a house to be dual aspect, and refuses over-intensive conversions; its supporting text names maisonettes above shops among the places where they lead to poor living conditions and internal noise. Harrow’s 2010 guide adds that self-contained flats solely in the roof space of most suburban houses are unlikely to be acceptable. In Barnet, Part 3 of the design SPD asks, among other things, that a flat conversion makes the minimum alteration to the outside and avoids an additional front door.

Harrow Local Plan 2021–2041, the adopted plan (PDF) · Harrow: Residential Design Guide Supplementary Planning Document, adopted 15 December 2010 (PDF, file 23276) · Barnet Sustainable Design and Development Guidance SPD, adopted 15 June 2026: Part 3, flat conversions and HMOs

Working hours, skips, parking and the conservation area maps for the whole area are in our Edgware and Canons Park guide. Local guidance checked ; requirements depend on the address, the building and the complete proposal.

What the work covers

The work on an Edgware or Canons Park flat

Roof space and new flats

Barnet’s register shows applications to turn roof space into flats. An application made in 2020 on Deans Lane for a mansard roof with front and rear dormers, to form a self-contained flat, was approved subject to conditions; one made in 2021 at Edgwarebury Court, on Edgwarebury Lane, for a hip-to-gable roof extension with a raised ridge and three rear dormers to provide three flats was approved following a legal agreement. Check the address and council first; work of this kind then starts with the roof structure and the freeholder.

Barnet planning register: public access search (planning, building control and licensing)

Dividing a flat or adding a floor

Barnet’s register also records applications to divide flats: an application made in 2007 on Station Road to separate an existing flat into two one-bedroom flats, and one made the same year on Manor Park Crescent to turn a first-floor flat into two after a loft conversion and roof extension, were both approved subject to conditions. Dividing a flat means new walls, new kitchens and bathrooms, separate services and fresh sound and fire separation between the two homes. Check the address and council for your own flat first.

Barnet planning register: public access search (planning, building control and licensing)

Fire doors, sound and the layout

Since 23 January 2023, the responsible person for a block with storeys over 11 metres in height has had to make every effort to check every flat entrance door onto the common parts once a year, so choose any new front door with them. Harrow’s Local Plan notes that the internal layout of rooms can help reduce noise between homes, while sound insulation is for the Building Regulations; plan bedrooms and living rooms with the flats around yours in mind.

GOV.UK: Fire Safety (England) Regulations 2022, fact sheet on fire doors (regulation 10) · Harrow Local Plan 2021–2041, the adopted plan (PDF)

How we work

How we run a Edgware and Canons Park flat refurbishment

  1. First visit

    We see the flat, then the entrance, stairs or lift that serve it.

  2. Lease and consents

    We go through the lease’s consent requirements with you and the managing agent at the start.

  3. Survey and design

    Drainage and services are traced on site. Our own architects and structural engineers design the layout and any structural change around those routes, and any new external vent or window is checked for planning.

  4. Price and contract

    A fixed written price and a JCT contract follow the survey, scope and specification. The price names its allowances and exclusions, with consent fees and any common-parts work shown separately.

  5. Working in the building

    Common parts are protected and their condition recorded; deliveries keep to the building’s rules, and noisy work to those rules and the council’s permitted hours; key decisions go to a director.

  6. Handover

    Commissioning, drawings, certificates and any managing-agent close-out. Completed work carries a 12-month defects-rectification period under the JCT contract terms.

Real projects, clearly located

Examples of our flat refurbishment work elsewhere in London

None of these projects is in Edgware and Canons Park. Each card names where the work was done, so you can judge the finish and the approach before you brief your own.

Your brief

Before you ask for a quotation

  1. Read the lease and name the landlord

    Find the lease, or at least the clauses on alterations, and the name of the freeholder or the managing agent. If Harrow or Barnet Council is your landlord, tell us early: each council runs its own permission process for the people who lease its flats.

  2. Describe the building

    Tell us the full address and the floor, and whether the building is above a shop, a purpose-built block, a converted house or a listed building. On the High Street, give the street number as well, so the council and the conservation area can be confirmed.

  3. Collect the building’s history

    Gather earlier permissions for the flat and the building, any building rules or fire safety notes from the managing agent, and plans of the flat. Mention any work already done to floors, walls or the bathroom, so we know what lies beneath the finishes.

Ready to take the next step? Send the address and a short outline of the work.

Book a free feasibility visit

Questions before you begin

Flat refurbishment in Edgware and Canons Park: questions

If Barnet Council is my landlord, does planning permission count as its consent?

No. Barnet Homes’ guidance says a consent from any other body, even the council’s own planning, building control or HMO teams, does not count as the landlord’s. Its improvements page lets you put several alterations into one application and says no work should start before the decision, so apply once for the whole refurbishment and book the work only after the answer.

Barnet Homes: guidance on making alterations to leasehold properties, October 2021 (for Barnet Council leaseholders) · Barnet Homes: leaseholder home improvements (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

My flat is in a listed building. What changes?

Listing adds a consent of its own, separate from the lease and from planning. In Barnet, the Local Plan says consent is needed for any alteration, and for some repairs, that touches the special interest of a statutory listed building, and the council looks at internal works as well as external ones. In a listed building such as the Railway Hotel, a new partition, a moved kitchen or a changed window may therefore need consent before it begins.

Barnet Local Plan 2021–2036, adopted 4 March 2025: the plan and its adoption documents · Planning Data: Railway Hotel, listed grade II

Can I extend my council flat into the loft?

Neither council agrees to it as landlord. If Harrow Council is your landlord, it will not allow you to buy the loft space and extend into it, nor ground-floor extensions on its estates. If Barnet Council is your landlord, Barnet Homes does not sell lofts and refuses landlord’s consent for loft works, because the loft sits outside the lease’s demise and often carries services that other flats share. Look for the extra space inside the flat instead.

Harrow Council: home alterations permission for leaseholders · Barnet Homes: leaseholder home improvements (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

Who owns the windows and front door of a Barnet council flat?

If Barnet Council is your landlord, Barnet Homes’ lease page says the freeholder keeps the main structure and the joints and beams, and also the front door, door frame and window frames unless a Deed of Variation has changed that. New windows or a new entrance door are therefore the council’s decision as well as yours, so raise them before the rest of the refurbishment is designed.

Barnet Homes: your lease (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

May I fix a satellite dish to my flat?

If Barnet Council is your landlord, ask first: Barnet Homes’ lease page requires permission before an aerial or satellite dish goes on the outside of the home, and warns that one may be refused where the block already has an integrated reception system. With any other landlord, check the lease and ask the managing agent before anything is fixed to the walls.

Barnet Homes: your lease (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

How much does a flat refurbishment cost in Edgware and Canons Park?

Guide rates in Edgware and Canons Park are £900–£1,700/sqm excluding VAT, with a full two-bedroom refurbishment typically between £60,000 and £110,000, over a 16–32 weeks programme. A written scope and site assessment come before any fixed price.

Book a free feasibility visit

Talk to us about your Edgware and Canons Park flat

Tell us the address and what you want to change in your Edgware and Canons Park flat. We reply within one working day, Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm.

Or call 020 7101 3168. We serve Edgware and Canons Park from our studio at Unit 3, Palace Court, 250 Finchley Road, London NW3 6DN.

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