Flat refurbishment in Herne Hill

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

On the west side, Lambeth’s Herne Hill Conservation Area, first designated in December 2007, covers commercial and residential buildings of around 1900 near the road’s junctions with Half Moon Lane and Milkwood Road, in red or yellow stock brick under tile or slate. The 2012 statement finds commercial premises on the ground floor of the vast majority, often with storage or homes above; the one exception is Herne Hill Mansions, a wholly residential mansion block with a mature front garden. It notes that building east of the railway tended to be later, with detached and semi-detached houses in bigger gardens.

Opposite, most of the adjoining properties on the Southwark side fall in the Stradella Road Conservation Area, designated on 26 September 2000, which covers Stradella and Winterbrook Roads and bordering properties on Burbage Road and Half Moon Lane. Its appraisal describes mostly single-family houses with a small number of flats: principally semi-detached, on two floors with attic rooms, in plain red brick laid in Flemish bond, originally roofed mainly in natural Welsh slate, with mostly double-hung timber sash windows. A pocket of post-war houses replaced war-damaged ones in Stradella Road.

SE24 appears on both sides of the line: Southwark’s 1987 direction refers to the Sunray Estate, Herne Hill, London SE24, and Lambeth gives the Peabody Estate on Rosendale Road an SE24 address. Lambeth’s statement splits the road by side, but it does not say every address follows that rule, so do not infer the council from which side of the road a house stands on. A ward name such as Lambeth’s Herne Hill & Loughborough Junction says nothing about conservation areas, and the Dulwich Estate’s Scheme, which reaches Stradella Road and the Sunray Estate, is defined across Southwark, Lambeth and Lewisham, so ask the Estate whether it covers your address. Even Lambeth’s skip licence page tells applicants to check, with GOV.UK’s Find your local council service, that a location really is in Lambeth. Once the council is known, its conservation area map, the statutory list and its Article 4 pages come next, and after them the deeds or lease and earlier consents for the property.

Local design and consent context

Lambeth consulted on a draft Herne Hill Conservation Area Statement from 26 October to 23 November 2009 and agreed the final version on 26 March 2012; it is a material consideration on planning proposals. For windows it suggests internal secondary glazing where more insulation is needed, says double glazing should be avoided because it rarely matches the original detail, and advises against metal, unpainted hardwood or uPVC units. Brickwork should not be cleaned, rendered, painted or clad, and natural slate is preferred on roofs.

Lambeth’s Brockwell Park Conservation Area, first designated on 10 December 1983 and extended on 24 March 1999, includes the park and the houses adjoining its south and east sides; its character appraisal exists only as a 2020 consultation draft, not an adopted document. Nearby Lambeth conservation areas include Poet’s Corner, designated on 12 October 1998, a mid-to-late 19th-century development of Chaucer, Spenser, Shakespeare and Milton Roads, and the Peabody Estate on Rosendale Road, designated on 24 March 1999, social housing from 1901 onwards in blocks of flats and terraced houses.

There is no Article 4 direction for Stradella Road on Southwark’s list; the one at the corner of Croxted Road and Norwood Road in SE24 deals with telecommunications, not homes. On the Lambeth side, the 2020 draft for Brockwell Park says no building there is subject to a direction, and the 2012 Herne Hill statement explains that most external alterations already need permission because the buildings are commercial premises or flats. Confirm the current position with each council.

Access and site planning

In Southwark, noisy works may run between 8am and 6pm on weekdays and 9am and 2pm on Saturdays; in Lambeth the weekday hours are the same but Saturday work must stop at 1pm, having started no earlier than 8am, and both councils rule out Sundays and bank holidays. Southwark’s Section 61 consent for noisy demolition or construction must be sought at least 28 days before works start. Over a shop or in a mansion block, agree access and quiet periods with the building manager, and give neighbours the dates of the loudest work.

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

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