Builders in Notting Hill, W11

Notting Hill is characterised by mid-19th century stucco and brick terraces arranged around large communal garden squares, with smaller mews houses behind the main streets and a mixed stock of conversions towards Ladbroke Grove. Most of W11 lies within a conservation area, permitted development rights are restricted across much of it, and the garden square layouts are themselves a protected part of the setting.

The characteristic project is a full house renovation combined with work at lower ground level — opening the rear of the house to the garden, improving daylight into a half-buried floor, and reworking the plan so the lower ground becomes the main living space. Rear extensions and glazed additions are common where consent allows, but their scale and detailing are closely controlled where they are visible from a communal garden.

Excavation and structural work at lower ground level bring the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 into play on both sides of a terrace, and the Royal Borough applies firm limits on the extent and depth of basement works. Where a scheme involves underpinning or lowering a floor slab, the party wall process and the structural design need to run in parallel from the outset, since the surveyors’ award can set conditions that affect the construction sequence.

Mews properties are a distinct case. They are small, often listed or in a conservation area, and access is through a narrow entrance that will not take a lorry. Everything arrives in small loads, storage is effectively nil, and the works have to be staged in a way that keeps the mews passable for neighbours throughout.