Flat refurbishment in Petts Wood

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

Petts Wood grew in the late 1920s and 1930s on the garden suburb principle. The 2025 Chislehurst Road appraisal credits Basil Scruby, who with his architect Leonard Culliford drew up a masterplan for the roads, amenities and plot sizes that remain largely unchanged, and who used covenants on the plots to control building lines, roof heights and materials; roofs then had to be English tiles of natural clay or stone at a pitch of at least 45 degrees. Station Square was laid out in 1928, and building spread from the east side to the west.

The Local Plan’s Petts Wood Area of Special Residential Character holds around 1,500 detached and semi-detached homes on about 112 hectares, bounded by the railway to the north and the Chislehurst Road conservation area to the north-east, and excluding Station Square. Its prevailing 1930s design remains largely intact. The plan singles out front roof lines largely untouched by roof extensions, the symmetry between pairs of houses, low boundaries and visible front gardens, and rear gardens often over 120ft; some houses are by Noel Rees, who designed every building in The Chenies.

Petts Wood has one Area of Special Residential Character, five conservation areas and several Article 4 plans, and which of them applies is settled plot by plot. One name is a trap: the Chislehurst Road conservation area lies at the northern fringe of Petts Wood, not in Chislehurst. The Local Plan’s written ASRC boundary was also drawn before The Covert and The Thrifts were designated in 2022. Nor is a BR5 postcode or the Petts Wood & Knoll ward any guide: the 2021 order that set up Bromley’s 22 wards does not describe their boundaries in its text. Use the council’s interactive map and each Article 4 plan for the exact plot, and only then turn to the title or lease and the planning record.

Local design and consent context

The design guide calls Petts Wood’s ASRC the largest in the borough. As a Local Plan designation, separate from the conservation areas, it falls under Policy 44, which asks development to respect, enhance and strengthen its special and distinctive qualities. The plan’s guidelines for these areas rule out backland development, ask new work to take account of existing front and rear building lines, ask for mature trees and landscaping to be kept wherever possible, and resist proposals that significantly increase hard surfacing in front of houses unless satisfactory landscaping comes with them. The guide names extensions and replacement houses as the main development pressure.

Three directions cover the whole ASRC. An immediate direction dated 2 January 2021 removes Part 1 Class AA, adding storeys to a house, and was confirmed in July 2021. A second, sealed on 15 March 2021, removes Part 20 Classes A, AA, AB, AC and AD, new homes built on top of existing buildings, from 15 March 2022. A third, confirmed on 24 June 2022, removes Part 1 Classes B and C, roof enlargements and other roof alterations, from 19 July 2022, replacing an earlier front-slope direction; a matching Class C direction covers the Chislehurst Road conservation area.

Boundaries have their own directions. A direction in effect from 16 June 2016 removes rights for gates, fences, walls and other enclosures, listed by the council for the ASRC, The Chenies and Chislehurst Road; Station Square has one for boundaries and temporary uses from the same date; and The Chenies has a 2012 direction on roof alterations, including roof lights visible from the highway. The Covert and The Thrifts appraisals say roof and boundary directions are in place there. Petts Wood Town Centre also has a 2023 direction, modified by the Secretary of State, on turning commercial premises into homes. Check the plans for the exact address.

Access and site planning

Any skip placed on the public highway needs Bromley’s temporary highway licence, for which only a skip company on the council’s register may apply, and each licence lasts two weeks. Only on a private road with restricted or controlled public access is no licence needed; where the public may pass along an unadopted highway, one is still required. Scaffolding that obstructs the highway, or a hoarding that reaches the footway or carriageway, needs the council’s consent. Apply for a parking bay suspension no later than three working days before it is needed.

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

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