House extension in Ravenscourt Park

Connect the added space to the existing home.

Start with the house extension brief

Begin with how the new space will meet the old rooms, garden and circulation. A measured brief should record boundaries, levels, existing drains, neighbouring windows and the parts of the building you intend to keep.

Develop daylight, structure and services alongside the floor plan. Agree which openings and finishes are included, how the existing home will be protected during construction and which decisions need surveys or approval before a quotation.

The local building context

On the east side, Ravenscourt Road is a relatively wide street of terraces and semi-detached villas, and the rear of its western side is highly visible from the park. Nos. 41–93 form a three-storey terrace with basements whose stucco detailing, frontage walls and piers the profile singles out, while Nos. 86–98 (even) and 95–101 (odd) are mid-Victorian two-storey pairs in stock brick with Doric-columned porches. Paddenswick Road has terraces and paired villas of 1830–1860 in stock brick with stucco detailing, and the profile calls their front gardens particularly important to their mature and relaxed character.

The profile describes the listed houses of Ravenscourt Gardens as two-storey stuccoed semi-detached houses of the mid to late 18th century whose original front railings have been removed, and Stamford Court as dominating the corner of the site north of Ravenscourt Gardens. On the park’s west side, Ravenscourt Square is built on three sides and opens east into the park; most of its houses are stock brick, and No. 17 is a Gothic cottage of about 1840. Ravenscourt ward, which contains the park, had 3,077 dwellings in 2021, most of them flats or maisonettes.

Ravenscourt Park is the name of a park, a station and a road, and none of those labels, any more than a W6 postcode, shows which council handles applications, where a conservation boundary falls, whether a building is listed or which consents a job needs. The conservation area reaches west to the borough boundary, the council’s register files the conservation area’s Buildings of Merit under W6 and W12 street headings, and the Westcroft Square Conservation Area’s eastern boundary follows the rear of the properties on the road called Ravenscourt Park. Start from the house number instead: find it on the council’s conservation area map, in the direction schedules and on the statutory list, then check the title or lease and the building’s planning history.

Local design and consent context

First designated on 20 February 1974, the Ravenscourt and Starch Green Conservation Area was enlarged in September 1982, January 1990 and March 1991, and it appears as number 8 in the Local Plan’s table of conservation areas; the boundary changes that took effect on 13 November 2018 did not include it. The council’s Planning Applications and Transport Sub-Committee approved its character profile on 2 July 1997 as supplementary planning guidance, and the printed copy carries the date December 1999. The council publishes it in eight parts with a boundary map and warns that the profile’s lists of Article 4 directions and Buildings of Merit are not complete.

Its design guidelines cover roofs, chimneys, walls, windows, pipework, front boundaries and trees. A front roof extension is generally considered unacceptable and will only be considered within a terrace already significantly impaired by front roof extensions; in some cases a highly visible rear roof may prohibit a roof extension; consent should not be granted to demolish original chimney stacks visible from the street or public spaces; and views in and out of the park are of particular importance. The profile predates the 2018 Local Plan, so ask the council how it applies these guidelines now.

The council lists five Ravenscourt and Starch Green directions, numbered 1 to 5, and where a direction restricts permitted development rights, the restricted classes of work need planning permission. Its address list of affected properties, last amended on 1 October 2011, gives 8 May 1979 for No. 1, which covers alterations to the roof, gables and dormers at the front, coverings included, changes to the rear roof covering and painting brickwork that is still unpainted at named houses in Ravenscourt Gardens, Ravenscourt Square, the road called Ravenscourt Park and Ravenscourt Road; at 15–19 (odd) and 41–105 (odd) Ravenscourt Road it also covers rear extensions, including the rear roof.

Access and site planning

Work out early where a skip, a scaffold or a delivery vehicle can stand. Hammersmith and Fulham accepts skip, scaffold and building-material licence applications only from the firms concerned, not from residents. A skip licence lasts 14 days at minimum and a skip may never sit on the footpath; a scaffold licence lasts a month at minimum and must keep a footway at least 1.2 metres clear; and materials or plant left on the road need a building contractor’s licence and can go on the carriageway only. To suspend up to six parking bays for up to three days, allow at least eight days’ notice, counting Saturdays and Sundays.

Continue planning

The Ravenscourt Park area guide · House extension across London · Hampstead Architecture & Planning · Hampstead Chartered Surveyors

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Design support: Hampstead Architecture & Planning.
Surveying support: Hampstead Chartered Surveyors.