Loft conversion in Whetstone

Test the roof space before settling on a layout.

Start with the loft conversion brief

A measured roof survey should establish headroom, structural spans and where a staircase could meet the floor below. Plan the stair, escape route, insulation and building services together before treating the loft as another room.

Compare the proposed roof shape with the address-specific design guidance below. Record chimneys, shared walls and neighbouring rooflines, then ask the appointed designers to identify the structural work and consents the proposal needs.

The local building context

Barnet’s Totteridge Conservation Area Character Appraisal Statement, adopted in May 2008, describes a gravel ridge running west to east whose road links Mill Hill with Whetstone and Barnet, and says the land rises gently from the east at Whetstone. In its account, the more concentrated inter-war and post-war development typical of Whetstone did not continue past the conservation area’s eastern boundary. It records closer, more tightly knit housing east of Totteridge Lane, where suburban housing replaced farmland within easy walking distance of the station, and larger, more spacious housing to the west.

Historic England’s entry for No. 1264 High Road, listed at Grade II in 1982, describes a house, now commercial premises, of the late 15th or early 16th century and the 18th century, with 19th- and 20th-century alterations. It records an 18th-century front range of red brick in Flemish bond, of two storeys and attic, with two late 20th-century shop fronts on the street elevation, and a two-storey timber-framed rear range, close-studded with wattle and daub infill, partly underbuilt and replaced, and rendered. The entry adds that documentary references to property on the site go back to 1504.

Whetstone is a place name and also one of Barnet’s 24 electoral wards, but a ward line is drawn for elections, and neither the place name nor an N20 postcode decides the council, a conservation boundary, a listing or the consent route for a home. Start with the official council lookup; after that, the evidence that matters is the conservation-area map, the list entry for the building, any Article 4 direction with its mapped area, the title or lease, and the property’s own planning history.

Local design and consent context

Of the 16 Barnet conservation areas listed by Planning Data, none carries the Whetstone name. The Totteridge Conservation Area, designated in December 1968, lies to the west: its 2008 appraisal says the eastern boundary is formed by the suburban development of Totteridge and Whetstone. Barnet’s boundary map gives a last amended date of 6 May 2008, so read the map itself for any address near that edge.

Planning Data lists 15 Article 4 directions for Barnet, and none is named for Whetstone. The Totteridge Conservation Area has two: a direction made in 1970 and approved in 1972, and an Article 4(2) direction recorded from 6 May 2008, whose scanned order names 17 to 27 (odd) Totteridge Village. The 2008 appraisal says the first of these allows the council to control minor works such as external doors, windows and roofing materials, hardstandings, porches and external painting, and that it applies in selected parts of the conservation area, namely Totteridge Green and Totteridge Village around its junction with Grange Avenue and around St Andrews Church. None of those parts is in Whetstone.

Planning Data also records a Barnet Article 4 direction on small houses in multiple occupation from 29 May 2016. Its order concerns changing a dwelling house (Use Class C3) into a small house in multiple occupation (Use Class C4), a change of use that is separate from ordinary refurbishment of your home.

Access and site planning

Plan the route from the kerb to the room first: where vans can stop, where rubbish can be held until it is collected and how a shared entrance or stair will be protected. Ask the council what it requires before scaffolding, a skip or stored materials go on the road or pavement, including any licence, parking bay suspension and notice period; for a Barnet address, begin with the council’s web pages on highways licences and on parking suspensions. Confirm the restrictions on the street outside the property itself.

Continue planning

The Whetstone area guide · Loft conversion across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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