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Palmers Green N13 · Flat refurbishment

Flat refurbishment in Palmers Green

Many flats sit above shops, and each is reached its own way

Enfield’s records place many Palmers Green flats above shops: two residential storeys over each unit of the larger Aldermans Hill parade, and locally listed Green Lanes parades whose homes are reached by a recessed street door, an outside stair or a rear entrance. Others include blocks built since 1945 and divided houses. This page covers windows above shops, the shopfront below, dividing or adding flats, house conversions and what to gather before you ask for prices.

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Start here

Flat refurbishment in Palmers Green at a glance

How the front door is reached shapes a flat refurbishment here as much as the rooms do. Enfield’s Local Heritage List describes Nos 300 to 310 (even) Green Lanes as a three-storey parade whose apartments are reached through a central recessed entrance that keeps its original tiled floor. At Nos 326 to 346 (even), the first-floor flats are reached by an external stair from Hazelwood Lane, which keeps its original metal railings, and Springfield Parade, Nos 348 to 362 (even), has two-storey maisonettes above the shops reached from the rear. Deliveries, protection and access works all start from that route.

Enfield: Local Heritage List, December 2024 (PDF)

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

Approved guide prices

What does a flat refurbishment cost in Palmers Green?

A flat refurbishment in Palmers Green 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

Palmers Green flats: parades, later blocks and divided houses

This page looks at three groups of flats that Enfield’s documents describe here: homes above the Aldermans Hill and Green Lanes shops, blocks built since 1945, and houses divided into flats. Each group meets a different mix of controls.

On Aldermans Hill, the larger of the two shop blocks, Nos 68 to 92, is in the words of Enfield’s Lakes Estate appraisal, approved in June 2015, a complete composition: each unit is a shop with two residential storeys above, with canted bay windows, moulded cornices and pargetting. Across the Aldermans Hill shops, the appraisal records extensive replacement of the flats’ windows in unsympathetic modern designs, and in some cases lost cornice detail too. The Lakes Estate Article 4 direction is addressed to the owners and occupiers of houses, and its schedule does not include these parade numbers.

Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Lakes Estate Article 4(2) direction, made 24 February 2010 and confirmed 26 April 2010 (PDF)

Enfield’s local list describes homes above the shops in four Green Lanes parades in Palmers Green ward, and records none of them in a conservation area. Each keeps original detail worth protecting during works: surviving leaded windows on the upper floors of Nos 300 to 310, a high proportion of original doors and windows on every upper-floor elevation of Springfield Parade, and an unusually high proportion of original shopfronts on the curved northern block of Nos 464 to 492, a three-storey parade between Hedge Lane and Green Lanes.

Enfield: Local Heritage List, December 2024 (PDF)

Several blocks of flats in the appraisal are post-war. It records that early twentieth-century houses at the west end of Aldermans Hill survived until the late 1930s and have been replaced since 1945 by low-rise blocks, without saying whether those blocks are in the conservation area. Fairweather Court, 1a Lakeside Road, is a three-storey block of about 1990 with red clay tiled roofs and canted oriels, broadly in keeping with the estate, and a three-storey block of about 2012 stands by the railway. Dumayne House on Fox Lane, an office building of about 2000, is now residential.

Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF)

Permissions and local rules

Consents for a flat above a Palmers Green shop or in a block

Windows on the floors above the shops

Who controls the windows of a flat over a shop?

Flats fall outside householder permitted development altogether, so an outside alteration that materially affects the building’s appearance needs planning permission whether or not an Article 4 schedule names the address. That matters on Aldermans Hill, where the appraisal records extensive window replacement and some lost cornices above the shops. Repairing an existing window is a different question. The lease or the freeholder may also control the windows, and where Enfield Council is the landlord its leaseholders may not alter or replace windows under any circumstances.

Householder permitted development technical guidance · Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Lakes Estate Article 4(2) direction, made 24 February 2010 and confirmed 26 April 2010 (PDF) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements · Enfield: council housing leaseholders (page modified 22 July 2026; Enfield Council leaseholders only)

When the shop below is part of the work

What if the works reach the shopfront?

This applies only where the shop is altered as well as the flat. In the Lakes Estate, the 2015 management proposals resist the loss of historic shopfronts, say new mass-produced aluminium and uPVC shopfronts are not appropriate, and say the council will resist solid external metal security shutters. Outside designated industrial areas, DMD 40’s criteria include that a new or altered non-residential frontage respects the rhythm, style and proportions of its building or group and avoids damage to pilasters, capitals and other significant features, and that any security shutter proposed is mounted inside, behind the fascia and visually permeable.

Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Dividing a flat or adding one above a shop

Will the council support another flat in the building?

Enfield’s adopted Core Strategy of 2010 lists Aldermans Hill as a Small Local Centre in its hierarchy of town centres and steers new homes, with other uses, into centres by that hierarchy; its table maps no boundary, so ask the council. In town centres, DMD 30 encourages reusing upper floors of shops, including as homes, and supports subdividing existing flats above shops where its criteria are met, among them an adequate way into the upper floor kept separate from the shop. In the Lakes Estate, new units in existing blocks face controls like those on divided houses.

Enfield: The Enfield Plan Core Strategy, adopted November 2010 (PDF) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved June 2015 (PDF)

Converting a house into flats

What does Enfield require of a house conversion?

The 2015 management proposals note continuing pressure to divide the estate’s larger houses and say subdivision will not be acceptable if it fails to preserve or enhance the conservation area. Anywhere in Enfield, DMD 5 requires a conversion, among other tests, to meet the internal space standards in the London Plan, to cause no unacceptable noise or disturbance, and to provide parking and refuse storage that do not harm the street scene. Dividing a family home also means including a replacement family unit: three or more bedrooms, at least one a double, with direct ground-floor access to dedicated amenity space.

Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

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

What the work covers

The work in a Palmers Green flat

Rooms over a shop

Above a shop, the floor between you and the business carries sound and smells as well as your new finishes, so its build-up deserves as much thought as the kitchen. A refurbishment typically covers that floor, new wiring and heating, a kitchen and bathroom planned around the existing stack, and repair or careful replacement of the upper-floor windows. If the floor build-up or the layout is to change, read the lease first and settle with building control which application applies.

Entrances, stairs and shared routes

Some Green Lanes flats are reached by a route that needs care of its own: a recessed entrance with its original tiled floor, an outside stair with original railings, or a way in from the rear. Plan how materials come in and rubbish goes out without damaging those parts, protect floors and handrails throughout the job, and settle how shared areas are photographed and recorded at the start and at handover.

Enfield: Local Heritage List, December 2024 (PDF)

Layout, lease plan and records

Moving a kitchen, adding a bedroom or opening up rooms can change the lease as well as the drawings. Where Enfield Council is the landlord, its leaseholder page, modified 22 July 2026, says a leaseholder who changes the layout must apply, once consent is given, for a Deed of Variation so that the lease plan matches the new rooms, and its conditions require written approval before any work starts. In a private block, read what your lease says about alterations and plans, and keep every consent and certificate together.

Enfield: council housing leaseholders (page modified 22 July 2026; Enfield Council leaseholders only) · Enfield: leaseholder improvement or alteration works, application and conditions (Enfield Council leaseholders only) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

How we work

How we run a Palmers Green 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 Palmers Green. 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. Say who owns what

    Tell us whether you own a leasehold flat, a share of the freehold or the whole building with the shop, give the name of the freeholder or managing agent, and say whether Enfield Council is the landlord. Send the lease, including its plan and any clauses on alterations, windows and floor coverings.

  2. Show us the way in

    Send photographs of the street door, any shared hall, outside stair or rear yard, the front and back windows and the shop frontage below. Say where a van or skip could stand, and whether the route is shared with other flats or with the business downstairs.

  3. Separate what changes from what stays

    List what you want to change, such as the kitchen position or an extra bedroom, apart from what you want kept, such as original windows, cornices, floor tiles or railings. Note anything still waiting on the freeholder or the council, so that every quotation prices the same scope.

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 Palmers Green: questions

Is my block in the Lakes Estate Conservation Area?

It depends on the block. The appraisal says the boundary excludes Dumayne House on Fox Lane, while for the post-1945 blocks at the west end of Aldermans Hill it does not say either way, and Conway Road, which the gardens of the old houses there once reached, has N14 addresses. Compare your address with the boundary map in Enfield’s Lakes Estate appraisal before planning any outside change.

Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Lakes Estate conservation area · Find the council for the property

Enfield Council is my landlord. What extra rules apply?

What follows applies only where Enfield Council is your landlord. Its leaseholder page, modified 22 July 2026, requires the landlord’s consent in writing for any alteration, separately from planning permission or building control approval, and rules out altering or replacing windows, or coming off a communal heating system, in all cases. Under its conditions you send plans and schedules with the application, wait for written approval before starting, and give the council access to check the work within 21 calendar days of its completion, or when asked. Otherwise your own lease sets the rules.

Enfield: council housing leaseholders (page modified 22 July 2026; Enfield Council leaseholders only) · Enfield: leaseholder improvement or alteration works, application and conditions (Enfield Council leaseholders only) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Does work in a block go to Enfield’s building control?

Usually, but check first. Enfield sends work on an existing higher-risk building to the Building Safety Regulator, and a residential building counts as higher-risk when it has 7 or more storeys, or stands 18 metres or more high, and holds 2 or more residential units. Two blocks the appraisal describes, Fairweather Court and the block by the railway, have three storeys.

Enfield: higher-risk buildings and the Building Safety Regulator (page modified 28 February 2024) · Enfield: Lakes Estate Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: building control applications

Can two flats be joined into one home?

Possibly, though a merger means one home fewer, and Enfield’s adopted policies restrict that. Adopted policy DMD 4 lists the limited cases in which a usable home may be lost; one is that the redevelopment causes no net loss of residential floorspace. Core Policy 4 of 2010 commits the council to using its planning powers against the loss of homes, so raise the idea before design starts. Turning the shop below into part of the home is a change of use and a separate question.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: The Enfield Plan Core Strategy, adopted November 2010 (PDF)

What should I check before buying a flat above a shop to refurbish?

Read the lease for alterations, windows, floor coverings and access, and ask who owns the freehold and the shop. Find out what the business below does, when it opens and where its extract or plant sits, since noise and smells reach the floor above. Look at how the flat is reached, where bins and deliveries go and whether original windows survive, then ask for the building’s planning history before you commit.

How much does a flat refurbishment cost in Palmers Green?

Guide rates in Palmers Green 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 Palmers Green flat

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

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

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