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Kensal Rise NW10 · House refurbishment

House refurbishment in Kensal Rise

Parade-side terraces, Clifford Gardens and Harrow Road cottages

Houses inside the Kensal Rise Conservation Area, designated by Brent on 28 May 2024, lost some rights their owners had before, and Brent’s decisions on individual houses since then show how it has judged a loft, a chimney, a window or a basement. This page explains those decisions, describes the late Victorian terraces and the older Harrow Road houses in Brent’s documents, and lists what to settle before the inside is designed.

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Serving Kensal Rise from our Hampstead studio · NW3 6DN
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House refurbishment in Kensal Rise at a glance

If a house now in the Kensal Rise Conservation Area had a loft conversion planned before 28 May 2024, check the plan again. In September 2024 Brent refused a certificate of lawful development for one on a house on Clifford Gardens, with a rear dormer, a dormer over the outrigger, front rooflights and the chimney stacks taken down. The application came after designation, so the dormers were no longer permitted development, and the chimneys formed part of a principal or side elevation. Brent said planning permission would be required. The dormer point is the national rule for any conservation area; the chimney point turned on this house.

Brent: viewing or commenting on planning applications (search Brent’s planning register) · Householder permitted development technical guidance

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

Approved guide prices

What does a house refurbishment cost in Kensal Rise?

Cost in Kensal Rise depends on depth of work. A cosmetic refurbishment that keeps the existing layout runs £650–£1,250/sqm (typically £90,000–£180,000), while a back-to-brick renovation runs £2,250–£3,250/sqm (typically £275,000–£475,000), excluding VAT. A written scope and site assessment are needed before any project price can be fixed.

Scope of workGuide rateTypical total
Cosmetic — existing layout retained£650–£1,250/sqm£90,000–£180,000
Back-to-brick renovation£2,250–£3,250/sqm£275,000–£475,000
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

Late Victorian terraces and older Harrow Road houses in Brent’s records

Brent’s 2024 appraisal explains why some terraces were drawn into the conservation area and others left out, and Brent’s January 2020 local list records older houses on Harrow Road. Both show what a refurbishment here is working with.

Roof extensions come up twice in the appraisal’s account of these streets. It says the Langler and Pinkham terraced houses on Chamberlayne Road have not been altered with large roof extensions, although similar houses stand in neighbouring streets such as Crediton Road. On Okehampton Road, 2–14 (even) is a small unaltered terrace of late Victorian houses by E C Lorden, with multi-paned timber sashes, original timber panelled front doors and half-timbering to the gables; the street’s other houses, it says, are too altered with large roof dormers to be considered for inclusion. Check Brent’s map for your own address.

Kensal Rise Conservation Area Character Appraisal, December 2024 (PDF) · Brent: listed buildings and conservation areas

Within Brent’s Kensal Green Conservation Area on Harrow Road, the local list describes 822–834 as a terrace of two-storey rendered cottages, late Georgian or early Victorian, with simple timber sashes, Welsh slate roofs and small front gardens behind boundary walls, probably built between 1816 and 1824, and notes that cottages this early are rare in the borough. At 858–864 it records a mid-19th-century terrace of four town houses with an unaltered butterfly roof and surviving chimney stacks, and says outriggers were added at the rear, as at 850–856, not altogether successfully.

Locally listed heritage assets in Brent, January 2020 (PDF) · Kensal Green Conservation Area character appraisal and management plan (PDF)

Permissions and local rules

Dormers, windows and basements: what Brent has decided since 2024

Rear dormers and chimneys

Can a dormer still be added, or a chimney taken down?

Possibly, by planning application, and Brent has decided these one house at a time. In November 2025 it granted a rear dormer and front rooflights on a Clifford Gardens house. In March 2025 it accepted a rear dormer on a Chamberlayne Road house partly because an unexpired permission from before designation already allowed similar extensions. For the Clifford Gardens house refused a certificate, a December 2024 permission found that removing the chimney on its rear outrigger would not harm the conservation area or the house. None of these decisions sets a rule for the next house.

Brent: viewing or commenting on planning applications (search Brent’s planning register)

Timber, uPVC and the street

Will Brent accept uPVC windows?

One January 2025 decision shows uPVC accepted, and it turned on the street rather than the material. Brent granted double-glazed uPVC windows, front and rear, on a Clifford Gardens house because uPVC was already on the street elevation and that stretch had mixed frames, so design and detail counted for more; its Heritage Officer agreed, and the original timber door stayed. On another house in the street, in November 2025, the officer called replacing PVCu with timber sashes “laudable”. Brent’s undated Kensal Green management plan, written about 2006, says the council will not approve PVCu frames in that conservation area.

Brent: viewing or commenting on planning applications (search Brent’s planning register) · Kensal Green Conservation Area character appraisal and management plan (PDF)

A basement under a terraced house

What did Brent accept for a basement?

For that same Clifford Gardens house, the December 2024 permission covered a basement with a rear lightwell, a walkable rooflight in the garden, a single-storey side infill and removal of the rear additions. The officer found the basement proportionate, no wider than the house and less than 3 metres beyond its rear wall, and in line with Brent’s Basement SPD. Local Plan Policy BD3 requires rooflights flush with the ground and close to the house, and modest lightwells, preferably at the rear; a front one must be no more than 800mm or half the garden’s length, whichever is smaller.

Brent: viewing or commenting on planning applications (search Brent’s planning register) · Brent Basement SPD, adopted June 2017 (PDF) · Brent Local Plan 2019–2041 (accessible version)

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

What the work covers

Roof, back addition and services: what to scope first in a Kensal Rise house

Roof slopes, loft and stacks

The scope records each roof slope and its covering, every chimney stack with its pots, and any dormer or rooflight already there, with the planning history behind it. A loft plan then waits until the permission route for the address is known. The drawings show a new dormer’s size and position against the whole roof, and state which stacks are kept, repaired, rebuilt or taken down.

Outrigger, lean-to and side return

At the back, the scope says whether the outrigger stays as built, gains an extension into the side return, or loses a later lean-to, and how the kitchen and stair are replanned around that choice. Walls shared with the house next door are recorded at the same time, because cutting into one, or digging near a neighbour’s house to below its foundations, brings in the Party Wall Act and its notices.

Party-wall work requiring notice

Wiring, pipes and floors in one pass

Rewiring, new heating pipes and any change to the water supply are planned so the floorboards come up once. While they are up, the joists are checked for old notches and the floors for level, and the scope says which ceilings are kept and which replaced. Structural work, such as taking out a load-bearing wall, is designed and approved under the Building Regulations before the services are fixed.

When Building Regulations approval is needed

How we work

How we run a Kensal Rise house refurbishment

  1. Free feasibility visit

    We walk round the house with you and discuss what is feasible.

  2. Survey

    Rooms, levels and features to keep are measured, with opening-up or asbestos checks where needed.

  3. Design and consents

    Our own architects and structural engineers design the layout and structural openings, plan the service routes with them, and identify which consents and party wall notices apply.

  4. Price and contract

    A fixed written price and a JCT contract follow the survey, scope and specification. It records allowances, exclusions and how changes are priced.

  5. On site

    Work is inspected before it is covered, and a director reviews key decisions.

  6. Handover

    Testing, commissioning and snagging. Completed work carries a 12-month defects-rectification period under the JCT contract terms.

Real projects, clearly located

Examples of our house refurbishment work elsewhere in London

None of these projects is in Kensal Rise. 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. Date the plans you already hold

    If you bought the house with drawings, a permission or a certificate, note the date of each. A scheme drawn as permitted development before 28 May 2024 may now need an application, while a permission granted before then may still carry weight. Send them with the full address.

  2. Describe the house and its additions

    Say whether it is a terrace house, one of a pair or a cottage, and list what has been added over the years: outriggers, lean-tos, dormers or a cellar room. Photograph the roof slopes, the chimney stacks and the back, and mark the windows and doors you believe are original.

  3. Find the conservation area, if any

    Check Brent’s map for the address: Kensal Rise, Kensal Green, Queen’s Park or none. Queen’s Park addresses are covered by our Queen’s Park pages, and an address south of Harrow Road is in Kensington and Chelsea, not Brent. Say too whether the house appears on Brent’s local list.

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

House refurbishment in Kensal Rise: questions

Can a house divided into flats become one home again?

Sometimes. Brent’s Local Plan Policy BH10 supports schemes that leave fewer homes only in exceptional circumstances it lists. Two are bringing substandard homes up to the London Plan space standards, and joining flats into a single home with at least three bedrooms, where no more than one home, of two bedrooms or fewer, is lost. In March 2025 Brent granted turning a house on Chamberlayne Road, with a two-bedroom flat and rooms the officer likened to a substandard HMO, back into one family house, finding that it met both.

Brent Local Plan 2019–2041 (accessible version) · Brent: viewing or commenting on planning applications (search Brent’s planning register)

Can I fit an air source heat pump or solar panels?

Brent’s 2025 guidance on extensions, written for homes outside conservation areas and not for listed buildings, welcomes both. PV panels must project no more than 150mm from the roof and should be laid out to suit the house, and a heat pump should not go in a small space such as a side return. Brent will generally not accept a heat pump fixed higher than the ground floor where it is also prominent in views from the street, such as on the front or side; both conditions apply together. Inside a conservation area, ask Brent.

Brent Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD, January 2025 (PDF)

What if my house is unlisted and outside every conservation area?

Then Brent’s borough-wide extensions guidance of 2025 is the starting point. An extension beside an outrigger could fill the side return up to the neighbour’s boundary, but must not reach more than 3 metres beyond the outrigger’s end wall; if that creates inner rooms, the guidance wants a lightwell reaching back 2 metres or more from the rear wall. An L-shaped dormer must run along no more than half of a two-storey outrigger’s depth, and a wall, fence or hedge at the front should keep to 1 metre or lower. Check the map first.

Brent Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD, January 2025 (PDF) · Brent: listed buildings and conservation areas

Should I check flood risk before extending or digging?

Yes. Where an address sits in an area with critical drainage problems, Brent says the application will need a flood risk assessment, and one that lacks a required assessment is not validated. Its flooding page also says that surface water flood zone 3, mapped in the West London strategic flood risk assessment, takes in extensive parts of the borough. The Basement SPD adds that the borough sits mainly on London Clay over a chalk aquifer, so localised flooding in the borough usually comes from local drainage problems rather than groundwater.

Brent: flooding and flood risk, including when a flood risk assessment is needed · Brent Basement SPD, adopted June 2017 (PDF) · Check long-term flood risk in England

How current is Brent’s Kensal Green guidance?

Treat it as older advice. The Kensal Green Conservation Area appraisal and management plan prints no date and no adoption statement; it refers to Brent’s 2004 Unitary Development Plan and its latest year is 2006, so it was written about then. Its statements, such as the line on PVCu frames, record the council’s view at that time rather than a current Local Plan policy. Read it alongside Brent’s adopted Local Plan and ask Brent how it applies to your house before you order windows.

Kensal Green Conservation Area character appraisal and management plan (PDF) · Brent Local Plan 2019–2041 (accessible version)

How much does a house refurbishment cost in Kensal Rise?

It depends on scope. In Kensal Rise, a cosmetic refurbishment keeping the existing layout runs £650–£1,250/sqm (typically £90,000–£180,000); a back-to-brick renovation runs £2,250–£3,250/sqm (typically £275,000–£475,000), excluding VAT. A written scope and site assessment come before any fixed price.

Book a free feasibility visit

Talk to us about your Kensal Rise house

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

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

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