Kitchen Extensions Wimbledon

A kitchen extension in Wimbledon starts with which kind of house you own. The VOA count puts terraced houses at 32% of homes and semis or detached houses at 17%, so the brief here splits between a side return on a Victorian terrace and a deeper rear or wraparound room on a villa or semi. Flats are 51% of homes, and a garden flat takes a different route again. We build the shell, set the steel and fit the kitchen in one programme.

In Wimbledon, 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 Wimbledon: 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.

Side returns and rear rooms on Wimbledon houses

The permitted development limits tell you whether a Wimbledon kitchen extension can go ahead without a householder application. A single-storey rear extension may reach three metres past the original rear wall of a terrace or semi, or four metres on a detached house, and may not exceed four metres in height. A side return infill on a terrace is also a side extension, so it must meet the side extension limits too, including a single storey and a width no more than half that of the original house.

Where you want more, the prior approval route lifts the depth to six metres for a terrace or semi and eight for a detached house, as long as the land is not designated. Merton has to be notified first and next door is consulted, so it is a prior approval application rather than no paperwork at all. A longer room changes more than the drawings. It means a bigger slab, a longer steel run and more roof to drain, so settle the depth with your designer before we price the groundworks and order the glazing.

Housing in Wimbledon

For Wimbledon the Council Tax list gives about 25,760 homes; by type 51% flats and 49% houses, by age 38% post-war, 10% interwar and 52% older than 1919. Where most homes are flats, only a ground floor flat in Wimbledon with its own garden can extend its kitchen.

Wimbledon North Conservation Area and the side extension

Inside a conservation area, every side extension needs householder planning permission, so a side return on a designated street in Wimbledon is a planning job from the start. Merton describes the Wimbledon North Conservation Area as the land east of the south east corner of Wimbledon Common and north and east of Wimbledon Village. If your house sits in that zone, the side return goes through a householder planning decision before any digging. A single-storey rear extension within the standard depths can still be permitted development there, unless a direction or condition has removed the right, but the prior approval route to a deeper room is not available on designated land. Wimbledon North is not the only conservation area in SW19, so check Merton's map for your street.

If you use Merton's fast track householder service, the decision comes up to 46 days from validation inside a conservation area, against up to 30 days outside one. We build that window into the start date rather than guessing it. Merton's character assessment for Wimbledon North also records considerable pressure to redevelop individual houses with much larger dwellings, so the bulk of an extension and how much of it shows from the street deserve care in the drawings your designer submits.

Garden flats in Wimbledon need planning for a kitchen extension

A ground floor flat in Wimbledon cannot use permitted development for a kitchen extension. The householder rules for extensions apply to houses only, not to flats and maisonettes, and flats make up 51% of homes here. That covers the garden flat in a split Edwardian villa and the lower flat of a converted terrace alike, so the owner or their designer applies for planning permission before we can plan a dig.

The lease is the second gate. A lease often keeps the rear wall and the foundations with the freeholder, and sometimes the garden too, so you will normally need their written consent as well as the planning decision. The flat above will want to see how the new steel carries the wall that holds up their flat. We hand the drawings and a programme to your managing agent or surveyor early, so the consent does not hold up a booked start.

Structure, sewers and inspections behind a Wimbledon kitchen

Knocking the back of the house through to the new room is structural, so a Merton full plans application needs calculations for it. The structural engineer we appoint sizes the beam and padstones for the opening, and we prop, break out and set the steel. If the extension comes within 3 metres of a Thames Water sewer, Merton requires a full plans submission before work starts. Where the steel bears on a party wall or the dig comes close to next door's footings, the Party Wall etc. Act applies, and you as building owner serve the notices.

When Merton is your building control body, it issues a full plans decision within five weeks, or a maximum of two months if agreed. Once 48 hours notice of commencement is given, work may begin. Merton asks for site inspections to be requested at least 24 hours ahead, and Merton's example stages for an extension run from the foundation dig to the oversite and the new walls with their below ground drains. We line those visits up with the programme, so the kitchen fitters, roof lights and bifold doors follow a shell that has already been inspected.

• Building control inspections from footings to completion
• New kitchen circuits, with Part P certification from a registered electrician
• Foundations, drainage and slab with the kitchen services cast in

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 7 statistical areas in Wimbledon. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Once the kitchen extensions work in Wimbledon is scoped, people usually go on to read kitchen renovation in Wimbledon, kitchen extensions across Merton, fitting the kitchen itself, how building control inspects an extension, kitchen extensions anywhere in London and Extend or Move?.

Trusted Kitchen Extensions in Wimbledon

You get one firm from the first spade to the last worktop, which matters in Wimbledon where a side return, a steel and a new kitchen all land on the same few weeks. We take the programme from the drawings and consents the owner's designer secures, appoint a structural engineer for the steel, and book building control inspections around the build. A registered electrician certifies the new circuits and a registered gas engineer does any gas work, and the kitchen fitters arrive to a finished, inspected shell.

• Boiler flue, soil pipe and gully moved off the rear wall in the right order
• Drains surveyed by camera before the footprint is fixed
• Neighbours given notice before the noisy stages

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.