Basement conversion in Brackenbury Village

Investigate the structure and ground before design.

Start with the basement conversion brief

Distinguish an existing cellar conversion from excavation for a new basement. Record levels, drainage, access and the adjoining structures, and obtain project-specific ground and structural investigations before relying on a design or budget.

Plan temporary works, waterproofing, ventilation, escape and spoil removal as part of the same brief. Ask Hampstead Chartered Surveyors to assess party-wall matters and Hampstead Architecture & Planning to coordinate the design requirements. An area name alone does not establish ground conditions.

The local building context

The profile divides Bradmore into five sub-areas. Its sub-area 2 includes Brackenbury Road and Brackenbury Gardens, Benbow, Beauclerc, Coulter, Hebron, Marco, Tabor, Aldensley and Agate Roads, Carthew Villas, part of Sycamore Gardens and Nos. 155–161 Goldhawk Road. It is characterised by later Victorian terraces of two and three storeys, many with raised ground floors and basements, and the profile finds it generally grander than sub-area 1, with wider tree-planted streets and larger front gardens. Nos. 104–116 (even) and 127–139 (odd) Brackenbury Road, with 22, 51, 53 and 55 Aldensley Road, were the original village shopping parade.

House numbers matter here. The profile notes that on Brackenbury Road, Nos. 10–30 (even) are wider, with more stucco and porches on circular columns, and No. 10 is a double-fronted villa of yellow London stock brick, while Nos. 32–42 (even) and 59–69 (odd) are three storeys with no basement and a parapet hiding the roof. Nos. 1, 1a and 3 are two-storey stucco-fronted cottages of the mid-19th century. Beauclerc Road has three-storey terraces of 1868, Benbow Road mostly two-storey terraces of 1868 over semi-basements, and Coulter Road two-storey terraces, with Nos. 8–28 (even) built in 1879.

Sub-area 1, the largest, includes Atwood, Perrers and Carthew Roads, and the profile gives it an overriding character of tightly knit streets of two-storey cottages with small front and back gardens; Carthew Road is a long street of almost identical two-storey cottages in gault brick. Sub-area 5, which the profile calls the most recent addition, covers Overstone, Kilmarsh and Southerton Roads and part of Glenthorne Road; the profile describes original mid-Victorian terraced housing, with very few exceptions, and recorded that many of the houses had been converted into flats.

LBHF: Bradmore Conservation Area character profile, adopted by Cabinet on 10 July 2017 (Appendix 4)

Local design and consent context

The profile dates Bradmore Directions No. 1 and No. 2 to 6 October 1980 and No. 3 to 1 November 1983. At each property a direction names, any structure at ground or first-floor level behind the main rear wall needs planning permission. No. 2 covers 32–50 (even) Brackenbury Road and 1, 1A, 1B, 3 and 5 Carthew Road; No. 1 covers numbered properties on Atwood Road, Leamore Street, Perrers Road, Redmore Road and Studland Street; and No. 3 numbered properties on Atwood, Raynham and Redmore Roads and Studland Street.

Once a direction has removed a class of permitted development, the council’s Article 4 page says, work in that class requires planning permission. The council also keeps a summary list of the properties concerned, whose last amendment was on 1 October 2011 and which it warns may contain errors, so check the direction itself for your number. Apart from the Bradmore directions, an Article 4 direction on basements has applied across the borough from 26 April 2018, outside the Old Oak and Park Royal Development Corporation area.

Hammersmith and Fulham’s adopted Local Plan dates from 28 February 2018 and took the place of the Core Strategy 2011 and the Development Management Local Plan 2013. Policy DC11 limits basements, new or extended, to one storey save where an exception is made for a large site, and caps their reach beneath the garden twice over: no more than half the host building’s depth, and no more than half the garden’s depth. A Construction Method Statement prepared by a qualified structural or civil engineer must accompany every basement planning application.

Access and site planning

A start date depends on the street arrangements, so first agree the skip position, any scaffold and where deliveries will stop. In Hammersmith and Fulham a skip licence can be applied for only by a skip company, runs for at least 14 days and never allows a skip on the footpath; only a scaffolding company may apply for a scaffolding licence; and a hoarding licence is open only to building contractors, for at least one month. The council asks for no less than eight days’ notice of a suspension of up to six bays for up to three days, and weekend days count towards it.

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The Brackenbury Village area guide · Basement conversion across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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