Kitchen renovation in Palmers Green

Plan the kitchen around movement, storage and services.

Start with the kitchen renovation brief

Map preparation, cooking, washing and storage before choosing cabinet fronts. Measure clearances with doors and drawers open, and decide which existing walls, floors and details belong in the finished room.

Coordinate the cabinetry with water, drainage, extraction, electrics and lighting. Confirm appliance dimensions and access for installation before the layout is signed off; structural alterations need their own design and approval checks.

The local building context

Enfield’s Local Heritage List records that large tracts of land in Palmers Green were sold for building in 1902, after which the area developed rapidly. The first large-scale developments were the Old Park Estate, between Fox Lane and Aldermans Hill, and the Hazelwood Park Estate, between Hazelwood Lane and Hedge Lane, which was laid out between 1905 and 1910. Enfield’s Lakes Estate appraisal says its land was previously known as Old Park and that the estate was developed between 1904 and 1914, mainly by small builders, with no architects associated with its houses.

Many Palmers Green homes are flats. In the 2021 Census figures in Enfield’s ward profile, converted flats were the largest single type of home in Palmers Green ward, and flats together outnumbered houses. Aldermans Hill is lined with parades of shops with flats above, including two blocks built around 1908 by the developers Edmondsons; some Lakes Estate houses have been converted into flats; and the former Southgate County School on Fox Lane, listed Grade II, was converted into flats in 1984.

Neither the name Palmers Green nor an N13 postcode tells you which council decides, whether a home is in the Lakes Estate Conservation Area, whether its Article 4 direction covers the house, whether a building is listed or locally listed, or which consent route the work takes. Enfield’s Palmers Green ward is served by both N13 and N14, some other N13 addresses sit in Bowes and Southgate wards, the conservation area spans N13 and N14, and the Article 4 direction applies only to the properties in its schedule and on its plans. Confirm the council with the official lookup, then read the conservation area and Article 4 documents, any list entry, the title or lease and the planning history.

Local design and consent context

The management proposals say mass-produced modern materials such as uPVC and concrete roof tiles will not normally be appropriate, and that box dormers, obtrusive roof lights and non-traditional roof coverings visible from the public realm, and the demolition of original chimneys, will normally be resisted, as will new front-garden parking. They add that dividing a house need not harm the area if it is done without altering the house’s appearance and leads to no extra parking, especially in front gardens, although the Development Management Document sets a general presumption against converting single houses into flats in conservation areas.

For the houses it covers, the works for which the direction withdraws permitted development rights include enlarging, improving or altering a house where any part would front a highway, open space or waterway; altering a roof slope that fronts one; putting up a porch outside an external door that fronts one; providing a hard surface within the curtilage of a house where it would front one; putting up, altering or demolishing gates, fences and walls that front one; and painting the exterior where it fronts one. Its entry for installing, altering or replacing a chimney flue or soil and vent pipe has no fronting limit.

Several Development Management Document policies reach everyday house projects. DMD 11 sets criteria for rear extensions that need planning permission, including their depth beyond the original rear wall; DMD 13 generally permits front roof dormers only where they do not materially affect the character of the area and are not dominant or intrusive; DMD 5 sets a general presumption against converting single houses into flats in conservation areas and limits clusters of conversions; and DMD 46 asks that a new crossover does not harm the street through lost front gardens or front walls.

Access and site planning

Enfield says noisy building work that can be heard at the site boundary should only take place Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm, and Saturday, 8am to 1pm, and is not allowed outside these times or on bank holidays unless agreed with the council in advance. In a converted house or a flat above a shop, check the lease and any rules on noise, deliveries and shared halls. If you will live at home through the work, decide which rooms stay usable and when water or power will be off, and tell neighbours what is planned and when.

Continue planning

The Palmers Green area guide · Kitchen renovation across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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