Kitchen Extensions Kew

A kitchen extension in Kew is usually a question of how far back a Victorian house can go and what the street around it allows. Terraced houses make up 31% of homes here and semi-detached or detached houses 25%, so the usual choice on a house is between a side infill beside the back addition and a straight rear extension. Richmond Council sets its own depth guide by house type, and inside the Kew Green Conservation Area more of the work needs a planning application. We build the shell, the steel and the new kitchen as one job.

In Kew, 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 Kew: 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 deep a Kew kitchen extension can go under Richmond guidance

Richmond's House Extensions SPD treats a single storey extension as usually acceptable if it projects no further than 3m on a terraced house, 3.5m on a semi-detached house and 4m on a detached house. In Kew that makes the house type the first thing to settle, because the depth decides whether the new room takes a full kitchen run plus a table or only the kitchen. It also decides where the steel lands and how much of the garden is left.

Where a Victorian terrace in Kew has a narrow side passage and the infill is proposed deeper than that guide, the SPD limits its eaves height to 2.2m. That low eaves line shapes the roof: a sloping roof rising from the boundary towards the house, with the height recovered inside. We set the ceiling line and the top of the wall units against that eaves height at drawing stage, so the cabinet order fits the room that gets approved.

Housing in Kew

Count the homes in Kew and you get about 4,470: 31% built since 1945, 6% between the wars and 62% before 1919, with flats at 43% and houses at 57%. 31% of homes here are terraced; a terrace kitchen extension in Kew starts in a narrow side return.

Kew Green and Gloucester Road: where permitted development stops

Kew Green Conservation Area number 2 was designated on 14.01.1969, and inside a Richmond conservation area two storey rear extensions and any front or side extension need planning permission. Nationally, every side extension on designated land such as a conservation area needs householder permission too. For a Kew kitchen, that means a side infill in these streets goes through a planning application however modest it looks. That adds the planning period to the front of the programme.

Gloucester Road, Kew, carries its own Article 4 Direction within conservation area CA2. Where a Richmond home is covered by an Article 4 Direction, permission is needed for extensions and additions, new doors and windows and removing chimneys. That is Richmond's general list, and the Gloucester Road direction's own schedule says which elevations and works it covers, so check it before new garden doors are ordered. Taking out an internal chimney breast is building regulations and party wall work, not planning. We price and programme from the approved drawings, not from what might have been permitted development elsewhere.

Steel, drainage and the opening into the old Kew house

The new kitchen only works if the back wall of the house comes out, and in a Kew terrace that wall carries the floor and the rear wall above. The structural engineer we appoint sizes the beam and its padstones. Where Richmond is the building control body, its inspection framework lists steel and timber beams as an additional inspection item, IL03, and we book that visit so the steel is seen before it is boxed in.

Drainage is the other early job. A sink moved to an island or to the far end of a side infill needs a fall back to the existing run, and the old clay pipes behind Victorian houses can be shallow. We open the ground and confirm the levels and the route of any shared run before the slab is poured, because a kitchen layout that ignores the drain ends up with a pump or a raised floor.

Roof lights and glazing on a Kew rear extension

Glass is where the SPD asks for restraint. Richmond warns against light pollution from excessive roof lights and glazed roofs, especially where a property has been split into flats. That matters in Kew because 43% of homes are flats, and an upper flat can look straight down onto a neighbour's new roof. A fully glazed roof under upper windows is the kind of design that draws objection, because it glows at night.

We tend to work with two or three well placed roof lights over the worktop and table rather than a glass roof, plus wide doors to the garden. That gives light where the cooking happens and keeps heat gain and glare manageable in summer. Frames, blinds and the thermal detail at the junction with the old wall are settled before the roof is built, so the glazier and the roofer are not left to resolve it on site.

• Soil stack and gully rerouting beneath the new floor
• Island units with power and waste run through the slab
• Sliding, bifold and steel-framed glazed doors to the garden

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Kew Gardens. Counts rounded by the VOA.

If this is your first project in Kew, these are worth a look: kitchen renovation in Kew, kitchen extensions across Richmond upon Thames, fitting the kitchen itself, the Party Wall Act on a boundary build, how we handle kitchen extensions across London and Renovating a Victorian Terrace.

Why Kew Homeowners Choose GS Renovation

We run the structure and the kitchen as one programme, so the steel, the drainage runs, the first fix electrics and plumbing and the cabinet order are all worked out from the same drawings. The client has one point of contact from the first visit to the handover. A registered electrician certifies the new circuits, and an engineer on the Gas Safe Register handles any gas hob. The quote is fixed after a site visit, and it follows the consent the owner or their designer obtains.

• One contract for the groundworks, the steel and the kitchen fit
• Boiler flue, soil pipe and gully moved off the rear wall in the right order
• Waste cleared as we go, not left piled up outside

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.