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Hendon NW4 · Bathroom renovation

Bathroom renovation in Hendon

One room, planned around pipes, listing and the lease

A standalone bathroom in Hendon is welcome work for us, and where the room sits decides the checks. On The Burroughs, Barnet’s 2012 appraisal named soil and vent pipes among the classes it wanted the Article 4 direction to cover. In the listed cottages and houses there, listing protects the inside, plan form included. If Barnet Council is your landlord, Barnet Homes may consent to a bathroom renewal, en-suite or wet room where the lease allows.

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Serving Hendon from our Hampstead studio · NW3 6DN
020 7101 3168

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Bathroom renovation in Hendon at a glance

On the houses named in The Burroughs Article 4 direction, a new soil or vent pipe on an outside wall may need planning permission. Barnet’s 2012 appraisal listed the class that covers soil and vent pipes, as well as chimneys and flues, among those it would bring under an updated direction; the unsealed 2012 text at the end of Barnet’s file includes the same class, and Planning Data’s records for both areas of the direction list the code 1G. Before you settle where a new bathroom goes in one of these houses, ask Barnet what the order means for your address.

Hendon The Burroughs Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF) · Barnet: Article 4 direction for Hendon The Burroughs conservation area, A4D05 (partly scanned PDF) · Planning Data: Article 4 for Hendon The Burroughs CA, Area 1 · Planning Data: Article 4 for Hendon The Burroughs CA, Area 2

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

Approved guide prices

What does a bathroom renovation cost in Hendon?

A typical bathroom renovation in Hendon costs £10,000–£30,000 excluding VAT. The final price depends on the scope, the specification and the complexity of the room, and a fixed written price follows the visit and the design.

Scope of workTypical cost
Typical bathroom renovation£10,000–£30,000

The figure excludes VAT. A standalone bathroom gets its own room-specific quotation; try the cost calculator for a first figure.

The buildings

Listed cottages and council flats: where a Hendon bathroom can go

Beyond the Article 4 houses, Hendon’s listed homes and its council flats each set their own limits on where a bathroom can go and how its pipes run.

The grade II cottages at Nos. 44–52 (even) The Burroughs, attached to Burroughs House, sit directly on the footway. Barnet’s 2012 appraisals say listing protects the inside and outside of a building, including its plan form, and that works to a listed building should respect the building’s original design and internal plan form, its features of interest and its historic fabric, among other tests. In a listed home, place the bathroom where an existing room and service route already allow it, rather than cutting a new one through old walls and floors.

Hendon The Burroughs Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF) · Planning Data (Historic England): 44–52 The Burroughs NW4, grade II, list entry 1078865 · Hendon Church End Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF)

If Barnet Council is your landlord, your block is managed by Barnet Homes. Its 2021 guidance lists bathroom renewal, a new en-suite and the conversion of a bathroom to a wet room among the works it may approve where the lease permits them. New tiling may be approved as well, provided panels, ventilation ducts, service pipes and other communal services stay reachable, and an asbestos survey must be carried out before work starts. Ask for consent before you order fittings, not after.

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

Permissions and local rules

Checks for a Hendon bathroom before fittings are ordered

A bathroom in a listed home

What must an application for a listed Hendon home show?

Barnet’s 2012 appraisals for The Burroughs and Church End say an application for works to a listed building should come with enough detail for the council to judge accurately how the work affects the building, together with a justification, and that archive drawings will be required where necessary. They add that Barnet can take enforcement action against unauthorised works affecting a listed building’s special character. For a bathroom, that means drawings of the existing room, the new layout and every pipe and duct route.

Hendon Church End Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF) · Hendon The Burroughs Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF) · Planning Portal: listed building consent

Soil and vent pipes on a house

Can a new pipe run down an outside wall?

A householder may put in, alter or replace a chimney, flue or soil and vent pipe under Class G of the national permitted development rules, but not one rising a metre or more above the roof’s highest part. In a conservation area, such as The Burroughs or Church End, the right stops short of any of these on a wall or roof slope that faces a road where that wall or slope is the main or a side elevation of the house. Plan stacks inside or on a rear wall, and check the Article 4 direction first.

legislation.gov.uk: GPDO 2015, Schedule 2 Part 1, Class G: chimneys, flues and soil and vent pipes on a dwellinghouse · Planning Data: Hendon The Burroughs conservation area (CA17), designated 27 July 1983 · Planning Data: Hendon Church End conservation area (CA08), designated 27 July 1983

If Barnet Council is your landlord

Which bathroom jobs need Barnet Homes’ consent?

If Barnet Council is your landlord, the guidance Barnet Homes publishes treats any material change to the flat’s layout, services or interior as an alteration, and that includes altering the connection into service pipes or boilers. Swapping taps and other cosmetic, non-intrusive changes need no permission, yet a boiler replacement or electrical work of any kind counts as an alteration and needs written consent. A bathroom refit therefore usually needs consent even where the room stays where it is.

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

Adapting a bathroom

Is there help with an accessible bathroom?

Barnet’s page on adapting your home sends anyone who needs changes to make a home suitable to the Barnet Care and Repair Agency, which can help to find and oversee a builder, and to the Disabled Facilities Grant as a source of funding. A housing association, it says, will normally meet the cost of an adaptation in its own homes, and any council help follows an assessment of your needs. If Barnet Council is your landlord, Barnet Homes undertakes not to refuse consent unreasonably for an alteration linked to disability, and to consider reasonable adjustments under the Equality Act.

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

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

What the work covers

What a Hendon bathroom renovation covers

Waterproofing before tiles

Every wet area is tanked to the floor and up the walls before tiling, with the shower tray or wet-room former set to an even fall and the junctions sealed. In an upper flat or above a shop, we agree a leak test with the landlord before the floor is closed up, so the home or business below is protected.

Air out and light in

Moist air needs a route out that the building and its consents allow. We size the extract fan, choose where its duct can discharge, preferably at the back of the building or through the roof, and plan the lighting and any heated towel rail with the electrics, so the ceiling is opened once.

How we work

How we run a Hendon bathroom renovation

  1. Visit

    We see the room, trace where the stack runs, and check which floor it is on and what lies beneath.

  2. Survey

    The drainage falls, the extract route and the floor build-up at the door are measured before a layout is drawn.

  3. Design

    The layout, waterproofing and storage are drawn; where a floor or wall changes, our own architects and structural engineers design it.

  4. Price

    You receive a fixed written price once the design and fittings are agreed.

  5. Installation

    The dates, and any days without a working bathroom, are agreed before work starts.

  6. Handover

    Testing, then care notes for the finishes and fittings. Completed work carries a 12-month defects-rectification period under the JCT contract terms.

Real projects, clearly located

Examples of our bathroom renovation work elsewhere in London

None of these projects is in Hendon. 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. Measure and photograph the room

    Send the room’s measurements, photographs from each corner and of the ceiling, and a sketch of the current layout with the window, door, bath or shower, basin and WC. Mention any leaks, staining below, weak extraction or cold spots you have noticed.

  2. Say what kind of home it is

    Tell us whether the home is a house or a flat, whether it is listed or on one of the Article 4 terraces of The Burroughs, and who your landlord is if it is a flat. Each of these changes the consents the room needs.

  3. Decide what moves

    Choose whether the bath, shower, basin and WC stay where they are or move. Keeping them in place usually keeps the soil and waste routes, and the consents, simpler; moving them may need opening up first, so ask contractors to price that part on the same basis.

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

Bathroom renovation in Hendon: questions

Do you renovate a single bathroom in Hendon as a standalone job?

Yes. A standalone bathroom, shower room or en-suite is a project we plan and build on its own, in a Victorian terrace on The Burroughs, a listed cottage or a flat in a council block alike. We check the consents your kind of home needs first, then fix the layout, the pipe routes and the finishes in one written scope.

Does a bathroom count as a habitable room in Barnet’s guidance?

In the council’s view, no. In the consultation statement Barnet published when it adopted its 2026 design guidance, it said that, on reflection, a bathroom does not count as a habitable room in the Local Plan’s table, and so the guidance on siting habitable-room windows should not include bathrooms. That may matter when a new bathroom window looks towards a neighbour, though obscured glass is still sensible.

Barnet: consultation statement published with the Sustainable Design and Development Guidance SPD, 2026

Do I need consent to refit a bathroom in a listed Hendon cottage?

It depends on what the work touches. Barnet’s Local Plan says consent is required for any alterations, including some repairs, that would affect a listed building’s special interest. Barnet’s 2012 Church End appraisal notes that altering a listed building without consent is an offence, punishable by an unlimited fine, up to two years’ imprisonment, or both. Ask Barnet before you strip anything out.

Barnet Local Plan 2021–2036, adopted 4 March 2025: the plan and its adoption documents · Hendon Church End Conservation Area character appraisal and management proposals, 16 November 2012 (PDF)

Who owns the pipes under my council flat’s bathroom?

If Barnet Council is your landlord, Barnet Homes’ lease page says you own the cisterns, tanks, drains, pipes, wires and ducts that serve your home only, while the council as freeholder owns the pipes running through your flat that serve more than one home. Work on a shared pipe is therefore a matter for the council, so ask Barnet Homes before a stack or shared drain is touched.

Barnet Homes: your lease (for Barnet Council leaseholders)

Can my installer certify the bathroom work instead of building control?

For some of it. A registered competent person scheme installer can self-certify the work the scheme covers, tells the local authority on your behalf where needed, and gives you a certificate after completion, which a buyer’s solicitor will find in the searches when you sell. Work outside the scheme that needs approval still goes through building control, so agree before work starts who covers each item.

GOV.UK: building regulations approval, use a competent person scheme

How much does a bathroom renovation cost in Hendon?

A typical bathroom renovation in Hendon costs £10,000–£30,000 excluding VAT. The final price depends on the scope, specification and complexity of the project. We give a fixed written price after the visit and the design.

Book a free feasibility visit

Talk to us about your Hendon bathroom

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

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

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