Kitchen Extensions Charlton

A kitchen extension in Charlton is usually a question of which house you have. 35% of homes here are terraced houses, where the gain usually comes from the side return and a modest rear projection, and 16% are semi-detached or detached, where a rear or wraparound kitchen becomes possible. Flats are 49% of the stock and have no householder permitted development rights, so any kitchen extension to a flat starts with a planning application. We build the shell, the steel into the house and the new kitchen as one programme under Royal Greenwich rules.

In Charlton, 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 Charlton: 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.

How far back a Charlton kitchen extension can go

Royal Greenwich's Urban Design Guide treats a 3.6m single-storey rear projection as typically appropriate, and it will consider more where the neighbours' amenity is not compromised. For a Charlton terrace that figure is the useful starting point, because it sits just above the national permitted development limit of three metres for any house that is not detached. Within three metres, and meeting the other conditions, it can go ahead without an application, unless an Article 4 direction has removed the right. Beyond that, your designer draws it for a planning decision measured against the guide.

On a detached house the national limit is four metres, and the prior approval route lifts the ceiling to six metres for other houses and eight for detached ones, outside designated land. Height is capped at four metres for a permitted single-storey rear extension. We ask for the drawing and the decision notice before we price the groundworks, because the depth fixes the length of the foundation run, the size of the steel and how much of the garden the dig takes over.

Housing in Charlton

For Charlton the Council Tax list gives about 9,540 homes; by type 49% flats and 51% houses, by age 49% post-war, 22% interwar and 29% older than 1919. Terraced houses make up 35% of homes here, and a terrace kitchen extension in Charlton starts in a narrow side return.

Side returns and wraparounds on Charlton's houses

A side return infill suits a Charlton terrace with a rear wing. The wing leaves a narrow strip of yard beside it that adds little as outdoor space. Filling it and pushing out at the back gives the wide, square kitchen that the original layout never had. On a semi or detached house the equivalent move is a side extension. Royal Greenwich's guide says those should typically be no more than 50% of the width of the original house, so a wraparound is drawn to that proportion rather than to the plot boundary.

The guide also says the council generally does not support new terraces or balconies above the flat roof of an extension. That shapes the roof: plan for a flat roof with roof lights, or a pitched glazed section against the house, not a first-floor terrace reached through a bedroom window. Deciding this early in Charlton saves redrawing the parapet and the drainage outlets later, and it lets us order roof lights and glazing to the confirmed sizes.

Charlton Village Conservation Area and other designated land

If your house is in the Charlton Village Conservation Area, designated in 1971 and appraised in 2016, expect to need permission for any side extension, including a side infill to an L-shaped house. Royal Greenwich's guide says planning permission is generally needed for all side extensions in conservation areas, and national rules take side extensions on designated land out of permitted development altogether. A side return that a neighbour outside the boundary built without an application will need a householder application on your side of it.

Charlton Riverside Conservation Area, designated in 2018 and 2021, is another to check. Some Royal Greenwich conservation areas, such as Rectory Field, also carry an Article 4 direction that needs permission for side or rear extensions at listed addresses. In any of them, materials and rear elevations get closer attention, so the brick, the roof edge and the proportion of glazing are settled on paper before we order anything. That timing matters for your programme, because the decision sits between drawings and a start date, and we would rather hold a slot than start a dig that cannot be finished.

Drainage, steel and sign-off for a Charlton kitchen

The hard part of a Charlton kitchen extension sits below ground and in the back wall. A terrace can have a shared drain run behind it, and Royal Greenwich building control requires a full plans application to build over or within three metres of a public sewer. We check the run with a survey early, because a sewer under the footprint changes the paperwork route and can move the foundation design, and finding it after the dig has started stops the job while the application catches up.

Opening the back of the house means a steel beam, sized by the structural engineer we appoint and seated on padstones before the old wall comes out. Where the new kitchen opens into existing rooms, Royal Greenwich adds half the floor area of those adjacent rooms to the chargeable area, so the open-plan decision affects the building control charge. Before completion Royal Greenwich may ask for an electrical installation certificate, a gas certificate and the double-glazing specification, which the registered electrician, the Gas Safe engineer and the glazing supplier provide.

• Rear, side return and wraparound kitchen extensions
• Foundations, drainage and slab with the kitchen services cast in
• Wet underfloor heating laid in the new screed

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Charlton Village, Charlton Slopes and Hornfair Park. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Plenty of Charlton projects start with one job and grow, so it helps to see kitchen renovation in Charlton, kitchen extensions across Greenwich, a side return kitchen infill, the Party Wall Act on a boundary build, kitchen extensions anywhere in London and Utility Rooms and Their Cost.

The GS Renovation Difference in Charlton

You get one team for the structure and the kitchen, so the drainage positions, the steel and the worktop run are drawn around each other rather than fixed in the wrong order. We read your drawings and the decision before pricing, tell you where the sewer and the neighbours affect the sequence, and keep the kitchen fitters booked against the plastering date. Abdelaaziz Saaid, with more than three decades of hands-on building experience, oversees the work, and you have a written programme from the first survey to the final certificate.

• Boiler flue, soil pipe and gully moved off the rear wall in the right order
• New floor level matched to the existing house, with no step at the opening
• Photographs kept at each stage for your records

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.