Loft conversion in Brackenbury Village

Start with the loft conversion brief

A measured roof survey should establish headroom, structural spans and where a staircase could meet the floor below. Plan the stair, escape route, insulation and building services together before treating the loft as another room.

Compare the proposed roof shape with the address-specific design guidance below. Record chimneys, shared walls and neighbouring rooflines, then ask the appointed designers to identify the structural work and consents the proposal needs.

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’s guidelines treat front roof extensions as generally unacceptable, expect rear roof extensions to be sympathetic and resist the loss of hipped roofs where they belong to the original pattern; on Brackenbury Gardens the profile says mansards on a few north-side houses spoiled the original hipped roofs. They resist removing original chimney stacks that are a significant feature of the roofline and paving planted front gardens for parking, and say brick should not be painted, rendered or clad. The profile also identifies 18 key views, View 5 looking from Brackenbury Road towards Brackenbury Primary School.

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.

• LBHF: Bradmore Conservation Area character profile, adopted by Cabinet on 10 July 2017 (Appendix 4)
• LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions
• LBHF: properties affected by Article 4 directions, list last amended 1 October 2011
• LBHF: Article 4 directions, including the borough-wide basement direction
• LBHF: Local Plan, adopted 28 February 2018
• LBHF Local Plan 2018: policy document

Access and site planning

Hammersmith and Fulham expects noisy building work to keep to 8am to 6pm on weekdays and 8am to 1pm on Saturdays, with none on a Sunday or bank holiday, and work outside those hours can lead to prosecution. Since 1 April 2023 the council has also had a Code of Construction Practice. In a terrace or a divided house, write to the neighbours on each side, and to any managing agent, with the dates of the loudest stages, and decide early whether your household will stay at home through them.

• LBHF: construction site noise and permitted hours
• LBHF: construction guidance and Code of Construction Practice, April 2023

Continue planning

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