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Winchmore Hill N21 · Flat refurbishment

Flat refurbishment in Winchmore Hill

Flats over old shops, in converted houses and in post-war blocks

Flats near The Green take several forms that the council’s records describe: homes above the Victorian and Edwardian shops of Wades Hill, houses divided into flats, and blocks built after the war. This page covers what Enfield has decided here on flat windows, conversions and new homes over shops, the named blocks and the council’s records on them, the extra rules where the council is your landlord, and what to settle before design starts.

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Flat refurbishment in Winchmore Hill at a glance

At the top of Wades Hill, the 2015 appraisal finds Victorian and Edwardian shops, some with largely original shopfronts, and planning records show homes above shop buildings on the hill. On Wades Hill, Enfield granted the conversion of one house into three flats in 2005, well before its current policy, whose guidance sets a general presumption against converting single houses into flats in conservation areas: it shows that some flats may be conversions, not that one would be allowed now. Around The Green, most 20th-century buildings that break the building line are, the appraisal says, post-war flats and terraces set behind front lawns, partly hidden by trees.

Enfield: Winchmore Hill Green and Vicars Moor Lane Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

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

Approved guide prices

What does a flat refurbishment cost in Winchmore Hill?

A flat refurbishment in Winchmore Hill 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

Winchmore Hill flats: the named blocks and their records

The appraisal names several blocks of flats near The Green and judges their effect on the conservation area’s appearance. Its verdicts concern each building’s bulk and design, not the homes inside; council records add some of what was proposed, permitted or notified there.

Moor Park House, a bulky red-brick block at the eastern tip of The Green, is called more visible and therefore damaging. Repton Court (1998–9), on the corner of Hoppers Road and The Green, is a Georgian pastiche that fails to fit in convincingly because of its crude proportions, overly large roof, modern brickwork and poorly designed corner feature. Holly Lodge, at the southern entrance to The Green on Hoppers Road, is a bulky block said to detract slightly, and an unnamed, ineptly detailed modern block forms a disappointing gateway at the conservation area’s northern end on Wades Hill.

Enfield: Winchmore Hill Green and Vicars Moor Lane Conservation Area Character Appraisal, approved February 2015 (PDF)

Council records cover two of them. In April 2018 Enfield granted planning permission on two applications covering different parts of Moor Park House, between them for replacement windows, patio doors, rear-facing front doors and the communal entrance, each on condition that detailed drawings of the design, colour and materials were approved before development began. At Holly Lodge, a building control record for the whole block, with no date on the register, covers a general refurbishment including replacement windows and doors, and fire-rated FD30 doors installed in the block were notified to and approved by building control in 2025.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: building control

Margaret Court, a small block of flats on Vicars Moor Lane, appears in older archive records as undated proposals for a three-storey block of six flats with garages, for six flats and a garage replacing an existing building, and for five flats with nine garages; none shows a decision, so which was built is unclear. A 2006 building control record for one flat covers a new kitchen and a bathroom with an electric shower; its status reads Building Work Complete. None of these records places the block in or out of the Vicars Moor Lane Conservation Area: check the address.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: building control · Enfield: Vicars Moor Lane conservation area

Permissions and local rules

Local checks for a Winchmore Hill flat

Windows in a flat in the conservation area

Can I change the sashes in my flat?

In May 2025 Enfield refused planning permission to replace the front and side timber sashes of a flat, in a house on Wades Hill within the Winchmore Hill Green Conservation Area, with PVCu sashes. Its reason was that the PVCu would detract from the character and appearance of the conservation area and was not in keeping with the age and style of the building. That was one refusal on its own facts, but it shows the question the council asks. Check the lease too: where it calls for the landlord’s written permission, get that before ordering.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · LEASE: alterations and home improvements

Dividing a building into flats

What has Enfield weighed when flats were proposed here?

In November 2018 Enfield refused three small flats in part of a shop building on Wades Hill. It cited a poor housing mix with no family-sized flat, too little amenity space and no details of car or cycle parking or refuse storage. Adopted DMD 5 permits a conversion only if it meets set criteria, among them the London Plan’s internal floor space standards and adequate parking and refuse storage, and, where a family home is converted, a compensatory home of three or more bedrooms.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Homes above the Wades Hill shops

What has Enfield accepted above a shop here?

At a different Victorian shop building on Wades Hill, with a shop below and homes above, Enfield refused a four-bedroom flat in September 2021: it lost shop floorspace without a viability appraisal and fell below the national space standard, with a single-aspect, poorly lit ground floor and little or no outdoor space. In January 2022 it granted a three-bedroom flat using part of the ground-floor shop. In 2016 it had refused a one-bedroom flat there with rear extensions and a basement, among other reasons as wholly inappropriate for the conservation area on that constrained site.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register)

If Enfield Council is your landlord

What changes when the council owns the freehold?

Only where Enfield Council owns the freehold do these rules apply. On its leaseholders page, modified 22 July 2026, the council requires its written consent for any alteration, even where planning permission or building control approval is already held. Changing or replacing windows, and disconnecting from the communal heating system, are not permitted for its leaseholders in any circumstances. Where a consented change alters the layout, you will need a Deed of Variation to update the lease plan, and unconsented work can lead to enforcement, such as putting original features back. In a privately owned block, your lease decides instead.

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 Winchmore Hill guide. Local guidance checked ; requirements depend on the address, the building and the complete proposal.

What the work covers

The work inside a Winchmore Hill flat

Floors, ceilings and sound between homes

Above a shop or another flat, the floor is opened enough to see how the joists run and where pipes and cables cross before a new build-up is chosen. Sound insulation is planned together with the finishes, and Approved Document E is the benchmark for sound in the work it applies to. The result is agreed with the freeholder or managing agent before boards or tiles go down.

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

Doors, escape routes and shared parts

In a block, a flat’s entrance door is often part of the building’s protection against fire, so any replacement is chosen with the managing agent and checked against what the building needs. Work in halls and on stairs is planned around the other residents, and deliveries, protection of the common parts and access times are agreed in writing before the work begins.

Kitchen, bathroom and services

The kitchen and bathroom are usually renewed together with the wiring, plumbing and heating, because their routes are shared. In a converted house the waste may run to a stack that also serves other flats, so its position limits how far a bathroom or kitchen can move. Notifiable electrical and plumbing work is either certified by a registered installer or taken through building control.

When Building Regulations approval is needed

How we work

How we run a Winchmore Hill 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 Winchmore Hill. 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 what kind of building it is

    Tell us if the flat is over a shop, inside a converted house or part of a purpose-built block, what level it is on and, if the block has a name, what it is. If a shop is below, say whether the work would touch the shopfront or the shop’s floor area, since that brings its own planning questions.

  2. Send the lease and the landlord’s details

    Send us the lease, or its clauses on alterations and repairs, with the name of the freeholder or the managing agent, and say if Enfield Council is the landlord. Any building rules on working hours, deliveries, floor finishes or noise help too, because they shape how the work is planned.

  3. Look up the building’s planning history

    Search the council’s planning register for your building or block. Earlier decisions on windows, doors or conversions show what was approved and on what conditions, and a past building control record may explain how the kitchen or bathroom was last altered. Then say what you would change and what must stay.

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 Winchmore Hill: questions

Could two flats be joined back into a single home?

Under adopted DMD 4, homes that can still be used, with or without adaptation, may be lost only in set cases, of which the first is no net loss of residential floorspace; the others concern a needed community facility with no alternative location, or showing that continued residential use is unsatisfactory. Where joining two flats needs planning permission, expect it to be weighed against those cases. In a listed building, works affecting its character also need listed building consent.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014 · Enfield: listed buildings

Is my block a higher-risk building?

Only if it is tall. A residential building counts as higher-risk where it reaches 18 metres or has 7 or more storeys, and contains at least two homes; for work to an existing one, Enfield sends you direct to the Building Safety Regulator instead of its own building control. Count the storeys and check the height before planning work in a block, and ask the managing agent what the building’s own rules require.

Enfield: higher-risk buildings and the Building Safety Regulator (page modified 28 February 2024)

Does the shopfront below matter to my flat?

Only where the works include it. The 2015 management proposals say many original shopfronts around The Green have been replaced by crude modern units and should be reinstated to a more appropriate design whenever the opportunity arises. If the works alter the shopfront below, adopted DMD 40 permits a new or altered frontage only if it meets all the policy’s criteria, among them respecting the rhythm, style and proportions of the building or group, avoiding damage to pilasters, capitals and other significant features, and keeping any security shutters proposed inside, behind the fascia, and see-through.

Enfield: Winchmore Hill Green and Vicars Moor Lane Conservation Area Management Proposals, approved February 2015 (PDF) · Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

Will a new flat over a shop be able to get a parking permit?

Do not assume so. When Enfield approved a three-bedroom flat in a Wades Hill shop building in 2022, its transport officers asked for a legal agreement restricting future occupiers’ eligibility for residential parking permits in the controlled parking zone, and said the missing secure cycle parking and refuse and recycling storage must be addressed. That was a consultee’s request on one case, not a borough rule, so ask the council what it would expect at your own address.

Enfield: Find a planning application (the council’s online planning register)

Who repairs the windows and structure in an Enfield Council block?

Where the council is the landlord, Enfield’s leaseholders page says the council repairs and maintains the structure and exterior of the block, including external windows, and communal equipment such as heating appliances and door entry systems. Its buildings insurance, paid for through the service charge, covers the structure and shared areas but not the contents of your home. In a block with a private freeholder, the lease sets out who repairs and insures what.

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

Does a new flat above a shop need its own entrance?

Under adopted DMD 30, every new home created above a shop or other commercial premises must satisfy all the listed criteria. They include a separate, adequate way up to the upper floor, no harm to how the premises are serviced and parked for, and proper space for storing and collecting refuse. The policy also backs subdividing flats that already exist over shops, subject to the DMD’s criteria for that kind of scheme. These tests apply to proposals needing planning permission, and a building in the conservation area brings further checks.

Enfield: Development Management Document, adopted November 2014

How much does a flat refurbishment cost in Winchmore Hill?

Guide rates in Winchmore Hill 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 Winchmore Hill flat

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

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

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