House extension in Queen’s Park

Connect the added space to the existing home.

Start with the house extension brief

Begin with how the new space will meet the old rooms, garden and circulation. A measured brief should record boundaries, levels, existing drains, neighbouring windows and the parts of the building you intend to keep.

Develop daylight, structure and services alongside the floor plan. Agree which openings and finishes are included, how the existing home will be protected during construction and which decisions need surveys or approval before a quotation.

The local building context

On Chevening Road, the appraisal describes relatively large two-storey red-brick semi-detached houses behind generous front gardens and, on part of the west side, large three-storey red-brick semis behind a generous forecourt; that side was under construction by 1899, with houses designed by G A Sexton and built by Bennet and Gimbrett. The shop terraces at 46–56 (even) and 53–101 (odd) Salusbury Road have two levels of accommodation above each shop and mostly keep timber sash windows, and Lonsdale Road is a wide cobbled road, unique in Brent, fringed with converted stables, workshops and mews buildings.

Westminster’s Queen’s Park Estate Conservation Area lies in the north-west corner of the City of Westminster, adjoining Brent, and covers a large swathe of housing between Harrow Road and Kilburn Lane. Its 2005 audit describes terraces of two-storey cottages with gardens, generally two bays wide and mostly in yellow stock brick in Flemish bond with red brick detailing, under shallow-pitched Welsh slate roofs and with double-hung, single-glazed timber sliding sashes; some were purpose-built as flats with a shared front door. Historic England lists 68 to 82 and 132 to 154 (even) Fifth Avenue, terraces of about 1880, at Grade II.

Brent and Westminster each have a ward called Queen’s Park, and each has a Queen’s Park conservation area, so neither the place name nor the postcode tells you whose rules apply. Confirm the council through the official lookup, then check that council’s conservation-area boundary, any list entry, any Article 4 direction and its plan, the lease or title and the property’s planning history. Brent’s Cabinet approved an extension of the Queen’s Park Conservation Area on 28 May 2024, so check the address on Brent’s interactive policies map or ask Brent for the current boundary.

Local design and consent context

Brent lists the Queen’s Park Conservation Area, one of 22 in the borough, as designated in July 1986 and extended in July 1995. On 28 May 2024 Brent’s Cabinet approved a further extension of the boundary, as shown on maps in the report, and the current character appraisal records that the Cabinet adopted it that day as a Supplementary Planning Document, a material consideration in planning decisions.

The 1986 and 1995 boundary left out the area’s commercial edges, mainly Salusbury Road and Lonsdale Road, which the review appraised; on Salusbury Road, the appraisal records Kilburn Library, opened in 1894, as locally listed. The appraisal also proposed moving Honiton Road and Lynton Road in from the Kilburn Conservation Area, and did not recommend Wrentham Avenue, Crediton Road, Dundonald Road or Okehampton Road for inclusion, because most properties there had very large dormers extending onto the outriggers. These were the appraisal’s proposals, so confirm the current boundary for the address with Brent.

Westminster’s audit of the Queen’s Park Estate Conservation Area, adopted on 15 April 2005, says the area was designated in 1978 and that further controls came in February 1993, when an Article 4 direction took effect; that direction, as copied in the audit, cancelled one made on 6 May 1981. The controls listed include alterations to the front or any elevation visible from the street, changes of roofing material or colour, and boundary walls, fences and gates to the front or visible from the street. Westminster’s Article 4 page lists the Queen’s Park Estate, W10, for most properties.

Access and site planning

Plan where deliveries will pull up, where waste will be held and how a shared hall or stair will be protected. In Brent, a skip on the road needs a skip licence, which only skip companies can apply for, and scaffolding needs a Brent licence and must leave at least 1.2m of pavement for pedestrians. Brent’s parking page asks for bay suspensions at least 7 working days ahead, while its skip and highway licence pages say 21 days, so apply early and check both. For a Westminster address, a bay suspension needs 10 working days’ notice.

Continue planning

The Queen’s Park area guide · House extension across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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