Kitchen Extensions Brent

A kitchen extension in Brent starts with the type of home you own. The VOA count puts terraced houses at 18% of Brent homes and semi-detached or detached houses at another 18%, so a side return, a straight rear addition and a wraparound are all live options depending on the house. Flats are the other side of the picture: householder permitted development does not reach them, so a flat owner needs consent before any new floor area. We build the shell, the steel into the house and the new kitchen as one programme.

In Brent, a rear kitchen extension of about 30 square metres typically costs £45,000 to £97,500 excluding VAT, or £60,000 to £100,000 for a side return (indicative London ranges, Resi, MyBuilder and Checkatrade, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Brent: the structural engineer we appoint designs the foundations and steel, we build the room and fit the kitchen, and a registered electrician certifies the electrics.

Which kitchen extension fits a Brent terrace or semi

The house type decides the shape of the extension in Brent before any drawing is done. Brent's housing includes Victorian terraces and interwar semis, and they suit different shapes. A Victorian terrace often has a narrow side return beside the back addition, and filling that strip turns a galley kitchen into a room wide enough for a table. An interwar semi more often has a clear rear wall and a side passage, which suits a straight rear box or a wraparound that turns the corner.

Each shape changes what gets opened up in the existing house. A side return means taking out part of the flank wall of the back addition, while a wraparound usually removes both the rear wall and a length of the side wall, with a corner post or a longer steel. The structural engineer we appoint sizes the beams and pads from the survey, and we sequence the propping so the rooms above stay supported throughout.

Housing in Brent

Take the 135,080 or so homes the valuation list gives Brent: 62% flats, 38% houses, 28% from before 1919, 32% interwar and 40% post-war. Where most homes are flats, only a ground floor flat in Brent with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

How deep Brent lets a rear kitchen extension go

Brent's own depth guide is more generous than the national default for single storey work. The Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD allows a single storey rear extension to an attached home of up to 6 metres from the original rear wall. A two storey rear extension to an attached home is held to no more than 3 metres. For a kitchen that means the guide allows the ground floor twice the depth of a two storey addition, subject to the officer's assessment of light and outlook next door.

That depth guide is a planning document, so it applies when you apply for householder permission rather than relying on permitted development. The national rules without prior approval stop at three metres for a terrace or semi and four metres for a detached house. With prior approval outside designated land, those limits rise to six and eight metres. Your designer compares the routes for your plot in Brent, and we price and programme to whichever consent you hold.

Conservation areas and side infills in Brent

A home inside one of Brent's conservation areas loses part of the permitted development route for a kitchen extension. National rules say every side extension on designated land, which includes a conservation area, needs householder planning permission, so a side return infill in a conservation street is always a planning application. Brent's Willesden Green appraisal also spells out that, in a conservation area, a single storey rear extension more than 4m beyond the original rear wall of a detached house, or 3m for any other house, needs planning permission.

Brent says all of its residential conservation areas carry article 4 directions, which strip back further permitted development rights. Brent's Willesden Green Conservation Area, designated in January 1993, has a non-immediate article 4 direction of its own. In practice this means drawings, materials and roof glazing are settled with the planning officer before we order steel or windows, and the programme starts from the decision date rather than from a guess about when consent might arrive.

Drains, glazing and fitting the kitchen in Brent

Drainage is often what decides the paperwork route for a Brent kitchen extension. Brent requires a full plans application for any extension built over, or within, three metres of a public sewer, and a shared run behind a row of houses can pass close to the back wall. We expose and survey the run early, so any build over agreement the water company requires is in hand before the footings are dug and the drawings match what is actually in the ground.

Once the shell is up, the order of work matters more than the finish list. Roof lights and the large rear glazing go in before the floor screed, the kitchen supply and waste are set in the slab where the island or sink will sit, and the first fix electrics follow the kitchen drawing. We fit the units, worktops and splashbacks in the same programme in Brent, so there is one team and one handover rather than a builder and a separate kitchen fitter.

• Island units with power and waste run through the slab
• Drain diversions and build over agreements with the water company
• Boiler relocation and flue changes on the enclosed rear wall

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 35 statistical areas in Brent. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in Brent, these are worth a look: kitchen renovation in Brent, our Brent area guide, a side return kitchen infill, party wall notices for a kitchen extension, our London kitchen extensions page and The Party Wall Act.

Trusted Kitchen Extensions in Brent

A kitchen extension joins two jobs that are often split between firms: the structural shell and the kitchen inside it. We run both as one programme, from propping and steel through drainage, glazing and screed to the units and worktops. You get a written programme before work starts, a fixed quote after a site visit, and the drawings and consent you hold are what we build to. The structural engineer we appoint handles the calculations, and building control inspects at each stage.

• Screed left to dry before the kitchen floor finish goes down
• Building control and Part P certificates handed over together at the end
• Photographs kept at each stage for your records

Reviewed jobs near Brent

1 MyBuilder review from Wembley, with each customer's own job title:

• Install new worktop, Wembley, 10 Jul 2024 (5 out of 5)

Read all 31 on our reviews page.

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254). Structural design is by the consulting engineer appointed to your project.