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Southgate N14 · Flat refurbishment

Flat refurbishment in Southgate

Interwar blocks, 1950s flats and homes above the 1930s parades

Southgate’s flats range from Chandos Court of 1933 and Frederick Gibberd’s Ellington Court on the High Street to post-war blocks and the flats above the shopping parades around the station. This page covers what Enfield’s appraisals say about those buildings, the council’s policies on splitting houses and joining flats, the consent Enfield Council requires of its own leaseholders, and what a flat owner should settle first.

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Flat refurbishment in Southgate at a glance

Around Southgate station, flats and offices sit above the shops. Enfield’s Southgate Circus appraisal describes 1930s parades with offices or flats over them in Crown Lane and Ashfield Parade, and The Broadway, a parade with three floors of offices or flats above, planned on a tight elliptical curve. In 2014 it found many buildings poorly maintained, especially the upper floors of commercial buildings. The 2015 management proposals say new uses for vacant buildings should be encouraged, above the shops as well as at street level, and should suit the building’s architectural interest, aiming to sustain its fabric and reduce the pressure for low-cost changes such as uPVC windows.

Enfield: Southgate Circus Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Southgate Circus Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Planning Data: Southgate Circus Conservation Area (CA20)

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

Approved guide prices

What does a flat refurbishment cost in Southgate?

A flat refurbishment in Southgate 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

Southgate’s blocks of flats as the appraisals see them

Enfield’s Southgate Green appraisal names several blocks of flats and judges how each sits in the conservation area. Its observations were made in 2013, though the appraisal remains the council’s current one.

On the High Street, the appraisal calls Chandos Court, a formal neo-Georgian composition of 1933, handsome enough to be an asset to the area despite being over scaled. It finds Ellington Court, a modernist block designed by Frederick Gibberd in 1937, of architectural interest in itself but appearing out of character, largely because of its bulk, and partly hidden by cottages and mature trees. The group of 1950s flats on the east side of the street, Shakespeare House, Ashcroft and Whitehouse Court, it finds of little architectural merit and much more visible.

Enfield: Southgate Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Planning Data: Southgate Green Conservation Area (CA17)

Towards the north end of the High Street, a modern Georgian-style block on the west side restores some scale and rhythm, though poor detailing and materials, the appraisal says, prevent it making a positive contribution, and a group of very plain 1950s flats forms part of an uninspiring gateway. At the bottom of Cannon Hill, two plain post-war blocks replaced a large house: Foxgrove, screened by trees, and York Court, clearly visible from Aldermans Hill. In the Cannon Hill parade of shops with flats above, several properties at the south end were empty and in poor condition in 2013.

Enfield: Southgate Green Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)

The Southgate Circus appraisal records that building the station meant demolishing most of a large group of 19th century buildings at the south end of Chase Side, of which only the Southgate Club and a parade of three shops with flats above survive. Inside the conservation area are also the remains of a curved 19th century wall to The Grange, whose site was redeveloped with flats in the 1980s. Chase Side runs on towards addresses in Barnet, so a flat with a Chase Side address may not be in Enfield at all: confirm the council before relying on anything here.

Enfield: Southgate Circus Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved June 2015 (PDF) · Planning Data: Barnet tree preservation order, Osidge, 151 Chase Side, Southgate, N.14 (1971) · Find the council for the property

Permissions and local rules

Consents for a Southgate flat: council, landlord and lease

Homes above the shops

Does Enfield support flats over the parades?

Southgate is one of Enfield’s district centres, and the council’s DMD 30 encourages re-using or refurbishing the upper floors of shops in its town centres, homes included. It supports subdividing existing flats above shops where the relevant DMD criteria are met, and any new homes above shops must also have separate, adequate access to the upper floor and adequate refuse arrangements, without harming servicing, parking, the shops or nearby homes. These tests apply to new homes or subdivision that need planning permission, not to refitting a flat you already own; Enfield’s policies map shows the areas different policies cover.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: Local Plan proposals map

Splitting a house into flats

Can a Southgate house become flats?

Under Enfield’s DMD 5, a house can become flats only where, with other tests, each flat reaches the London Plan’s floor space standards, occupiers and neighbours are spared unacceptable noise, and adequate parking and bin storage do not harm the street scene. Where it is a family house, the scheme must include a replacement family home of three or more bedrooms, one a double, with its own outside space reached directly from the ground floor. For Abbotshall Avenue, the management proposals rule out subdivision that harms the houses’ appearance or settings, for example through new doorways or extra parking.

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

If Enfield Council is your freeholder

What applies if the council owns the freehold?

These rules bind only Enfield Council’s own leaseholders. You need the council’s written consent before you alter anything, and planning permission or building control approval does not take its place. Windows may not be altered or replaced, and the flat may not be disconnected from the communal heating, under any circumstances. Once consent is given for a new layout, you will need to apply for a Deed of Variation to update the lease plan. Work done without consent can lead to enforcement, including reinstating the original features. Where a private owner holds the freehold, the lease sets these terms.

Enfield: council housing leaseholders (page modified 22 July 2026; Enfield Council leaseholders only) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

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

What the work covers

What a Southgate flat refurbishment covers

Floors and sound

Lay new floors with the home below in mind. A hard floor carries footfall noise further than carpet, and a lease may set rules on floor finishes, so read yours before choosing timber or tiles. Measure the existing build-up, agree an acoustic layer with the managing agent before ordering, and keep door thresholds level. Approved Document E covers sound insulation between homes where the work falls within it.

GOV.UK: Approved Document E, resistance to sound · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Heating, wiring and shared services

Renew the wiring, heating and pipework as one package, so that each wall and floor is opened only once. In a block with communal heating or shared risers, ask the managing agent where supplies are isolated and what may connect to them, and keep new routes inside your own flat where the lease draws that line. In a flat above a shop, check where its services run through the commercial floor below.

Doors, windows and the shared parts

An entrance door, the windows and the outside walls of a block may belong to the freeholder, so read the lease before including them in the work. Protect stairs and landings throughout, book any lift or access times, and agree where materials are stored and how waste leaves the building. Photograph the shared parts before work starts, so that their condition at the end can be compared.

LEASE: alterations and home improvements

How we work

How we run a Southgate 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 Southgate. 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. Gather the lease and the block’s rules

    Send the lease, any licence for earlier alterations and the managing agent’s building rules, and say who the freeholder is. If the freeholder is Enfield Council, tell us at the start, because its own consent process, conditions and inspection then shape the order of work.

  2. Photograph the services

    Photograph the entrance door, the meter cupboard, the radiators, the boiler or heat interface unit and any visible pipework, and note whether the flat has communal heating. These pictures show early which services are yours to change and which belong to the block, before any layout is drawn.

  3. Decide whether the layout changes

    Say whether you want the rooms to stay where they are or to move walls, the kitchen or the bathroom. A new layout raises the freeholder’s structural questions and, for an Enfield Council leaseholder, a Deed of Variation, so it is the first decision to make.

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 Southgate: questions

Can I add a balcony or roof terrace to my flat?

Ask the council before any design. Enfield’s planning page says, in general terms, that if your property is a flat or maisonette, you will need to obtain approval and apply for planning permission. Your lease may also require the freeholder’s consent. Enfield’s Development Management Document says balconies, wintergardens or roof terraces may count as a flat’s private outside space where they would not harm the privacy of neighbours, and prefers wintergardens where a site is noisy or has poor air quality. Where the block is in a conservation area, that area’s guidance applies too.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: find out if you need planning permission · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Can I join two flats into one home?

Possibly, but Enfield protects existing homes. DMD 4 allows the loss of a home that can still be used, especially a family home, only in a few listed circumstances, one being no net loss of residential floorspace. The Core Strategy commits the council to using its development management powers against the loss of homes. Two flats made into one keep their floorspace but lose a home, so raise the idea with the council, and with the freeholder, before design.

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

Does a small conversion pay an affordable housing contribution?

Ask the council. Enfield’s page of adopted supplementary planning documents says that, after a national change in 2016, it no longer pursues section 106 contributions for education or affordable housing where a scheme proposes 1 to 10 units on a site of no more than 1,000 square metres gross floor area. That page does not deal with other planning obligations or with the Community Infrastructure Levy, so ask about those too.

Enfield: adopted supplementary planning documents

What does Enfield Council check after work in one of its leasehold flats?

Its conditions require an application with any plans, drawings and schedules of work and a signed copy of the conditions, and its written approval before improvement work starts. You also have to tell Home Ownership Services when the work starts and finishes, keep any common parts protected and clear, and let the council in to inspect the finished work within 21 calendar days, or whenever it asks.

Enfield: leaseholder improvement or alteration works, application and conditions (Enfield Council leaseholders only)

When can work be noisy in an Enfield Council leasehold flat?

Under the conditions Enfield Council attaches to its leaseholders’ improvement works, no work should take place between 10pm and 8am, and noisy operations should only happen between 9am and 5pm, Monday to Friday, and on Saturday mornings. Neighbours likely to be affected must be told. These are conditions of the council’s consent; where the freehold is privately owned, the lease or the building’s rules set any limits.

Enfield: leaseholder improvement or alteration works, application and conditions (Enfield Council leaseholders only) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

My flat has an N14 postcode. Is it in Enfield?

Not necessarily. Addresses using the Southgate name and an N14 postcode are found in both Enfield and Barnet, and every council rule on this page is Enfield’s. Use GOV.UK’s finder to confirm the council for your exact address. If the flat is in Barnet, its own council and your lease decide what you need, so ask Barnet Council before any work is planned.

Find the council for the property · Planning Data: Barnet tree preservation order, Osidge, 151 Chase Side, Southgate, N.14 (1971)

How much does a flat refurbishment cost in Southgate?

Guide rates in Southgate 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 Southgate flat

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

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

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