More for Barnes homes: our Barnes hub, house refurbishment in Barnes, kitchen renovation in Barnes, bathroom renovation in Barnes. The same work nearby: flat refurbishment in Wimbledon and flat refurbishment in Putney. Across London: flat refurbishment in London.
Flat
refurbishment
in Barnes, SW13
Architects, Engineers, Surveyors & Builders Under One Roof.
One Studio. One Contract. One Team.
Hampstead Chartered Surveyors & Building ConsultancyBarnes flats range from Arundel Terrace's 1898 mansion flats and Riverview Gardens' red-brick terraces of flats to the converted Harrods Depository and the homes over the shops of Church Street.
The stock then sets the brief. SW13 runs from Victorian villas and Edwardian semis to riverside houses and mansion-flat buildings around Castelnau, Church Road and the green setting of Barnes Common, and a flat here is often a converted floor within a period house — so the lease and the shared fabric weigh as much as the finish.
Position by the Thames adds one further layer: these are family homes in a riverside village, and near the water flood resilience is designed in from the outset.
Shared services in a village conversion
For a flat in one of the period buildings around Church Road or Glebe Road, trace the private and shared service routes before moving rooms. Measure the common entrance and staircase for deliveries, then agree protection and any required access through adjoining parts of the building.
A Barnes flat refurbishment in a shared building: what it covers
A Barnes flat may be one of the late 19th-century purpose-built ‘London Flats’ on Lonsdale Road north of the old police station, built as two-storey terraces, or a floor of a divided house. Either way, find the shared soil stack, risers and isolation valves before planning rooms, and read what the lease reserves to the building.
Source: Richmond Local Plan 2024–2039: interim version for adoption, October 2025 · Barnes Green conservation area appraisal, adopted 8 February 2024 · LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Before choosing a timber, stone or other harder floor, open a section to check the joist direction and any notching from old pipework, and confirm whether partitions carry load. Where one home sits directly on another, as in a London Flat, settle sound insulation, floor build-up and the lease together, since Approved Document E applies to particular building work.
Source: When Building Regulations approval is needed · GOV.UK: Approved Document E, resistance to sound · LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Look at every window and door before weighing repair, draught-proofing and secondary glazing against new units, and check whether the lease requires written consent before frames change. Plan insulation, heating, ventilation and moisture as one, bearing in mind that a flat has no householder rights for external work such as cladding.
Source: LEASE: alterations and home improvements · Historic England: a whole-building approach · Householder permitted development technical guidance
Consents to confirm before altering a Barnes flat
Whether a landlord or freeholder must agree in writing to changes to floors, services or windows, and on what terms, depends on the lease of a leasehold London Flat or a flat in a divided house. Read the alterations clauses early, and treat that private consent as entirely separate from any council decision.
Source: LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Rearranging rooms inside a flat is generally not development, so planning permission is seldom needed for that alone. Outside work is another matter: a flat has no householder permitted development rights, and the Barnes Green conservation area appraisal states that dwellings divided into flats do not benefit from them.
Source: When planning permission is required · Householder permitted development technical guidance · Barnes Green conservation area appraisal, adopted 8 February 2024 · Find the council for the property
If the building is listed, Richmond requires listed building consent for internal as well as external alterations. Building Regulations ask a separate question, since new bathroom plumbing, electrics near a bath or shower, replacement windows and heating work can each need approval. Party Wall notice arises only for qualifying work.
Source: Richmond: listed buildings · Historic England: listed-building consent · When Building Regulations approval is needed · GOV.UK: Building Regulations approval · Party-wall work requiring notice
Running flat works around Barnes neighbours
Work out how materials travel from the kerb, past the shared front door and up any common stair, and agree with the managing agent or freeholder how those parts are protected. Fix in advance when a shared supply may be isolated and how neighbours in the building will be told.
Source: LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Source: Richmond: construction noise and permitted hours · Richmond: Construction Code of Practice, January 2022 · LEASE: alterations and home improvements · Find the council for the property
Only a registered skip company may apply for a Richmond skip licence, and in a controlled parking zone the skip needs a bay suspension too, with notice so the council can put up the signs. On a TfL road, highway licences come from TfL, so compare its map with the frontage.
Source: Richmond: apply for a skip licence · TfL: red routes and the TLRN map · TfL: highway licences on red routes
Preparing a Barnes flat brief for quotation
Say whether the flat is a London Flat or part of a divided house, which floor it is on and how the entrance and stair are shared. Add photographs of the rooms that will change, the communal entrance and any damp, cracks or leak marks, so the survey knows where to look first.
Attach the lease and any building rules, plans from earlier works, past planning or listed building decisions and building control sign-offs for the flat. Note what you have found about the conservation area, any Article 4 direction and the flood zone for the address, and say who manages the building and how the freeholder is reached.
Source: LEASE: alterations and home improvements
Keep firm decisions on layout and finishes apart from questions that wait on lifting floors, an engineer's visit or the freeholder's reply, and ask for those to appear as provisional items. Name the person who will deal with the freeholder, apply for street licences and book building control inspections, and agree how changes will be recorded.
What does a flat refurbishment cost in Barnes?
A written scope and site assessment are needed before any project price can be fixed.
Mansion flats, the Depository and homes above shops
Castelnau's statement describes the north side of Arundel Terrace as three storey mansion flats of 1898, banded by painted stone quoins around full-height bays, and the Village Planning Guidance finds long terraces of three and four storey flats on Riverview Gardens, in warm red brick with white stucco or stone strips, their communal gardens running along to the towpath.
By the river the Harrods Depository buildings have been converted into flats, and on Church Street the guidance notes the distinctive homes above the shops, many keeping original features.
Windows are often the first external question in a flat. The guidance says original windows in houses or flats should be restored or replaced like with like, offers secondary glazing for warmth and sound, and notes slim double-glazed acoustic units that fit into existing timber frames.
For a Barnes flat we read the lease before anything else. LEASE explains that alterations even inside the flat can need the landlord's permission, and that a missing consent leaves the current owner in breach of the lease though the work was done by someone before them.
Richmond's Construction Code keeps noisy work, scaffolding included, to 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, with none on Sundays or bank holidays.
The Depository's own story is told in the guidance: Harrods opened it in 1894, adapting and expanding the remains of a soap and candle factory, long before its conversion to flats.
Outside Barnes: Chesterfield Street, Mayfair, where our team refurbished a whole Mayfair apartment.
In a mansion block the route for deliveries and rubbish through the common stair is agreed with the managing agent before a start date is fixed.
Sources: Richmond: Castelnau conservation area statement (No. 25); Richmond: Barnes Village Planning Guidance SPD (December 2015); LEASE: alterations and home improvements; Richmond: Construction Code of Practice (January 2022).
Flat Refurbishment in Barnes: Questions
Is the Harrods Depository in Barnes listed?
Yes. The guidance describes the conversion of the Grade II listed Harrods Depository and adjoining buildings into flats, so work inside a flat there can involve listed building consent.
Can a Barnes flat have new double glazing?
Often, if the lease allows it. The Village Planning Guidance prefers repairing original windows or adding secondary glazing, and where double glazing is chosen it points to slim timber units, discouraging uPVC because it cannot achieve the same detailed mouldings.
Do I need consent to refurbish a flat in Barnes?
Often from two directions: the landlord, where the lease calls for it, and Richmond for anything that changes the outside, which in a conservation area must preserve or enhance its character.
What kind of flats does Barnes have?
Purpose-built mansion flats on Arundel Terrace, terraces of flats on Riverview Gardens, flats in the converted Harrods Depository and homes above the shops of Church Street and the Castelnau parade.
How much does a flat refurbishment cost in Barnes?
A Barnes flat is priced on the building it belongs to. The lease and the landlord's consent, a managing agent's access rules, any flood-risk constraints on a riverside block, and the floor construction between flats all change the scope. A feasibility visit confirms these; when the scope and specification are agreed, you get a written quotation for your flat.
Our Barnes flat is near the river — does that change the work?
For a lower-floor flat it can. Richmond's flood policy refuses self-contained basement flats in the functional floodplain, so the flood zone is checked before any lower-floor layout changes.
