A whole house renovation runs several trades against one programme, and the structural work has to happen in the right order or it gets done twice. We survey, appoint a structural engineer where the job needs one, coordinate the building control application and inspections, and run the trades to a written programme. We do not produce structural calculations. Below are the Letchworth Garden City specifics worth settling before the first wall comes down.
Who decides what on a Letchworth renovation
The local planning authority is North Hertfordshire District Council, working to the North Hertfordshire Local Plan 2011 to 2031, adopted on 8 November 2022. North Hertfordshire contains forty four conservation areas and over 2,500 listed buildings, of which 29 are Grade I and a further 135 are Grade II star.
Four of those conservation areas sit within Letchworth Garden City. Letchworth Conservation Area was designated on 17 December 1974 and amended on 5 July 1990, and the others are Croft Lane, Norton and Willian. Which one your address falls in, or whether it falls in none of them, is the first thing to establish, because it governs what the external half of a renovation can do.
The design control here is a private covenant, not an Article 4 direction
There is no Article 4 direction anywhere in Letchworth. North Hertfordshire has only two Article 4 directions, both made on 9 October 2012, and they cover the Hitchin and Stockens Green conservation areas.
What applies here instead is the Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation Scheme of Management, a legal agreement applying to all freehold properties within the Letchworth Garden City estate. It is a covenant regime rather than a planning one, and it works differently from an Article 4 direction. A renovation that touches the outside needs its consent as well as anything the council requires.
Roof and wall materials the appraisal expects to see
The Letchworth Conservation Area Appraisal states that the use of slate was generally avoided in Letchworth Garden City, and that slates are therefore not characteristic of the Garden City. It records plain clay tiles as the predominant roofing material.
For walls, the same appraisal describes off white and cream roughcast as the predominant walling finish within the conservation area. Where a renovation includes re roofing or re rendering, matching that palette is the difference between a straightforward consent and an argument. We price the covering and the render that will be approved rather than the cheapest substitute.
Which part of the conservation area your house sits in changes the guidance
The Letchworth Conservation Area Appraisal divides the residential parts of the conservation area into eight sub character areas. They run from Area One, the Cheap Cottage Exhibition and early grouped layouts, to Area Eight, Campfield Way and Highover Road.
The appraisal and the Conservation Area Map were adopted for development control purposes by the Council's Executive Committee on 18 December 2001. The separate Croft Lane Conservation Area Character Statement now published is dated November 2019 and was endorsed in December 2019. Guidance in Croft Lane is therefore finer grained than the town wide appraisal, and worth reading before the scheme is fixed.
- Staircase repair, replacement and balustrade work
- Cornice, skirting and period feature restoration
- Planning permission and building control coordination
- Bespoke joinery, wardrobes and fitted storage
- Plastering, flooring, painting and decorating
The GS Renovation Difference in Letchworth Garden City
Letchworth Garden City is about 19.4 miles from our base in Potters Bar. That is a workable distance for a renovation, because a whole house programme is run from a settled site rather than a string of short visits, and we plan the labour that way. You get one point of contact for the structural engineer, the consents, the building control inspections and every trade on site. We are a contractor: we appoint and coordinate structural engineers and build to their calculations, and never produce those calculations ourselves. GS Renovation Ltd is fully insured, registered in England, company number 14611254, and rated 4.9 from 31 reviews on MyBuilder. Quotations are free and carry no obligation.
- Room by room handover so you can move back in stages
- Kitchen and bathroom selections planned early to hold the programme
- Paperwork and certificates handed over for when you sell
- Building control applications and inspections coordinated for you
- A dedicated project manager from first survey to handover
- Original features protected, repaired or reinstated as you want