Commercial Fit-Out Borough

Commercial fit-out in Borough means shops, cafes, restaurants, salons and clinics around Borough High Street and Borough Market. Southwark Plan 2022 lists Bankside and The Borough, and London Bridge, as District Town Centres. Units can be older frontages, railway arches or the ground floors of new blocks. We fit out customer facing units to the shopfront rules, the use class and building regulations, while office floors are a separate service.

For Borough, published UK guides put refurbishing a retail space at £1,500 to £3,000 per m² and a restaurant or cafe at £2,000 to £4,500 per m², and London units usually cost more (MyBuilder, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Borough: our own trades do the strip-out, back of house, counter fitting and finishes, and we coordinate the shopfront, extraction, electrical and fire specialists the unit needs.

Shopfront rules for a Borough unit on the High Street

A new or altered shopfront in Borough is governed by Southwark Plan 2022 Policy P39, and it has two firm requirements. Security grilles must go inside, not outside, the glass, and where a unit changes use inside a town centre it must keep or provide a shop window. A blank frontage or an external roller shutter will not fit that policy, so the brand design has to work with an open window and an internal grille from the start.

Policy P39 also requires traditional and historic shop fronts to be kept and refurbished in heritage assets and conservation areas. Southwark's Liberty of the Mint Conservation Area lies broadly west and south of Borough Tube Station, and the area's older commercial buildings may keep earlier frontages. Where the unit keeps its old front, our joiner repairs the fascia, pilasters, stallriser and console brackets to match the profiles, and the new glazing, door and signage fit within that frame. Many signs, particularly illuminated or projecting ones, need advertisement consent, which your designer applies for. In a listed building, listed building consent covers the interior as well as the front.

Use classes for Borough cafes, restaurants and takeaways

In Borough, as elsewhere, shop, cafe and clinic units sit within Class E, which covers shops, cafes, restaurants, clinics, gyms and offices, so moving between those uses does not need planning permission for the change itself. Hot food takeaways, pubs and bars are sui generis and need planning permission to change to. Near Borough Market, where food trade is the draw, check the permitted use in the lease and the planning history before signing, because a unit trading mainly as a hot food takeaway needs planning permission of its own.

Food units bring their own building work. Kitchen extraction needs a duct route to roof level or an approved discharge point, with odour control and acoustic treatment so the flats above are not affected; an external duct often needs planning permission too. Drainage from a commercial kitchen needs a grease trap or separator. We coordinate the extraction specialist, the gas engineer on the Gas Safe Register and the drainage connection so the kitchen is signed off before opening.

Railway arches and new block units in Borough

A railway arch unit comes with rules of its own. Southwark confirmed an Article 4 direction withdrawing permitted development for changes of use from light industrial to a dwelling in any railway arches, and its Class E to residential direction also covers railway arches, town centres and shopping frontages. For a trader, that makes it harder for an arch to be switched to housing. For the fit-out, the arch landlord's consent covers fixings into the brickwork, drainage, water ingress and services.

An arch fit-out usually starts with the shell: a new front screen, a drained cavity lining or membrane against damp from the arch, floor slab repairs and new incoming services. A ground floor unit in a new Borough block is the opposite case, handed over as a shell with capped services and a fixed shopfront zone, where the building's own fire strategy and rules on fixings to the frame set the limits. We price each from a site visit, because the two routes differ so much.

Building a Borough shop or cafe next to occupied flats

Where a Borough unit has flats directly above, the fit-out has to respect neighbours as well as the programme. The noisiest jobs, such as breaking out a floor for drainage or core drilling for an extract duct, go into slots agreed with the landlord and, through them, the residents above. Where neighbouring units keep trading, the landlord may also bar noisy work during their busiest hours. Deliveries on a busy street need planning around loading restrictions and market traffic, so we agree slots before the start.

The building regulations drawings for a shop or cafe go to Southwark as full plans, or to a registered approver, and they centre on the customer. Part M sets an accessible entrance and, where toilets are provided for customers, an accessible WC. Part B covers escape from the unit and the fire separation from the homes above. The landlord's licence sets what you can change and must reinstate, and the CDM Regulations give you, as the client, duties of your own.

• Cafe, restaurant and bakery fit-outs around the kitchen
• Working around neighbouring shops' trading hours
• Fascia and sign installation to the approved consent

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Borough & Southwark Street and Southwark St George's. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Two or three things usually come up alongside commercial fit-out on a Borough job: office fit-out in Borough, commercial fit-out across Southwark, builders in London, what a snagging list covers, how we handle commercial fit-out across London and Flooring Options Compared.

The GS Renovation Difference in Borough

A shop or cafe needs to open on a fixed date, and each week of delay is rent paid with nothing coming in. We look at the unit first, then quote in writing and plan backwards from your opening day, showing the shopfront, the counters, the extraction and the inspection dates. Our team builds the strip out, joinery, counters, floors, ceilings, lighting and decoration. Gas, extraction and electrical certification come from the specialist trades working to our programme, and the founder is the person you call.

• Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
• Step-free entrance and accessible WC planned from the first drawing
• Kitchen extraction and grease trap coordinated with their specialists

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).