Flat refurbishment in Dulwich

Plan the apartment and the shared building together.

Start with the flat refurbishment brief

Start with the lease, floor level, common access and the rooms you want to change. Trace shared drainage and services, identify the floor build-up and establish what the building manager needs before an internal layout is agreed.

Coordinate deliveries, noise, protection of common parts and waste removal with the building arrangements. Keep landlord approvals, design decisions and the construction scope separate so each responsibility is clear.

The local building context

Dulwich Village Conservation Area was designated in September 1968, one of the first in Southwark. It was extended in September 1971 to land south of College Road and Dulwich Common, and on 15 March 2005 to take in playing fields, part of Village Way and Red Post Hill up to North Dulwich station, and streets north of Dulwich Park including Court Lane, Court Lane Gardens, Woodwarde Road and Dovercourt Road. The appraisal describes a mainly residential area with shops, restaurants and a village pub at its heart, built mostly of red-brown or yellow stock brick under slate or tile roofs.

Street by street the appraisal finds real variety. The tight grain of Pickwick, Aysgarth and Boxall Roads contrasts with the spacious Edwardian and Arts and Crafts houses of Burbage Road, and many of the houses fronting College Road are listed and set well back in large private gardens. Between Court Lane, Woodwarde Road and Lordship Lane stand mostly turn-of-the-century terraces or substantial semi-detached pairs, chiefly brick, often with bay windows and barge-boarded gables. Dekker Road has small cottages and two-level maisonettes, and 1 to 12 Roseway with 157 to 175 Turney Road form a small 1920s garden estate.

An SE21 or SE22 postcode, or the word Dulwich in an address, settles nothing about which council decides, which conservation area applies, whether a building is listed or what consent is needed. Dulwich Library at 368 Lordship Lane has an SE22 address yet sits inside the Dulwich Village Conservation Area. Southwark’s SPD describes a West Dulwich shopping frontage on Park Hall Road, a road whose Nos 33 to 61 form a Lambeth conservation area, and Lambeth has its own West Dulwich ward. The Dulwich Estate’s Scheme covers land in Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham. So start from the house number. Establish which council it falls under, then search that council’s map of conservation areas, the statutory list of listed buildings and the council’s Article 4 pages for it, and, last, the deeds or lease and whatever has been approved at the address before.

Local design and consent context

Southwark’s Dulwich Village Conservation Area Appraisal is dated February 2006 and published in three parts. It divides the area into five sub-areas, from Dulwich College and the Picture Gallery to the old village, Court Lane and North Dulwich Station, and says that once adopted it is a material consideration on planning applications. Its guidelines ask you to consult the council’s conservation officer before altering the outside of any building, and they rule out losing front gardens to car parking or grass verges to crossovers.

The Dulwich SPD, adopted on 16 July 2013, covers Dulwich Village, East Dulwich and Herne Hill. It predates the Southwark Plan 2022, having been written to implement the Core Strategy and the saved Southwark Plan, though the council still lists it, so confirm its current weight before relying on it. It sets a presumption against subdividing large properties, treats Dulwich as generally unsuitable for back-land development and warns that roof or rear extensions may need bat information. For Dulwich Wood, designated on 30 September 1985, the council’s list links only a London Gazette notice and no appraisal; Southwark says it is producing appraisals for its 48 conservation areas on a rolling programme.

The Southwark Plan 2022 was adopted on 23 February 2022 and covers 2019 to 2036. The Householder Development SPD, adopted by cabinet on 7 July 2025, applies to houses and flats, including listed buildings and homes in conservation areas, and guides the use of the plan’s policies without adding new ones. It encourages rear extensions to stay single storey, requires a Basement Impact Assessment with any basement application, limits basements to one storey below ground and permits lightwells only where they are already a common feature of the street or area.

Access and site planning

The address decides which council’s street rules apply. Southwark takes skip licence applications from skip companies alone, and they must arrive 7 days before delivery; a skip in a restricted parking space also needs a bay suspension, booked with seven days’ notice. A scaffold or hoarding on or over a Southwark highway needs its own licence, applied for 15 working days or more before the start. Storing materials on the highway needs a separate licence. Lambeth likewise licenses skips through skip companies, covers scaffolding, hoarding and stored materials with a highways licence, and wants 10 or more working days’ notice for a standard suspension.

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The Dulwich area guide · Flat refurbishment across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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