Office Fit-Out Peckham

Office fit-out in Peckham is small-scale work. Southwark Plan 2022 names Peckham as a Major Town Centre, and the office space in it is small: upper floors above shops, small suites off Rye Lane and managed workspace such as Peckham Levels. We fit out those spaces for businesses taking, renewing or reconfiguring them: partitions, ceilings, lighting, power, tea points and WCs, built to the landlord's consent and approved building control plans.

For Peckham, the construction part of an office fit-out is published at £70 to £120 per sq ft as a UK guide, and an all-in London office fit-out at £148 to £359 per sq ft (Oktra and Cushman and Wakefield, 2026). GS Renovation Ltd, a building contractor based in Potters Bar, does the work in Peckham: we build the office partitions, ceilings, lighting and finishes as one contract and coordinate the IT supplier and specialist trades around them.

The office space Peckham actually has

Peckham's offices are mostly rooms above the high street. Southwark Plan 2022 names Peckham as a Major Town Centre, alongside Elephant and Castle and Canada Water, and the floors above its shops hold small offices, consulting rooms and studios. A first-floor suite over a Rye Lane shop is often reached by its own stair, may sit next to or below a flat and may have a single route out, and those facts shape the fit-out more than the layout does.

The other kind is managed workspace. At Peckham Levels, and in smaller studios on the side streets, the operator sets the rules on hours, deliveries, noise and which trades may work on the building's services. In both cases the space is modest, and a tenant is usually fitting it out against a lease start date. We scope the work around what the lease and the operator allow, and we visit before quoting to see the stair, the meters and the escape route.

Cat A, Cat B and the landlord's licence in Peckham

Cat A is the landlord's base finish: ceilings, lighting, heating, small power at the perimeter and working WCs. Cat B is the tenant's own layout on top of it: partitions and glazed screens, meeting rooms, a tea point or kitchenette, data routes and furniture power. In a Peckham office above a shop, the landlord may hand over a bare shell rather than true Cat A, so read the lease and schedule of condition before you price the Cat B.

Almost every lease needs the landlord's licence for alterations before work starts. The landlord's surveyor will want drawings, a method statement and details of anything touching the structure, fire alarm or services. Your designer supplies the drawings and we supply the method statement. We then coordinate the data cabling with your IT supplier's own installer and build the partitions so they can come out cleanly at the end of the term. Signage inside the office is part of our scope; signs on the street front are a separate consent.

Building control for a Peckham office fit-out

Office fit-out work in Peckham goes through a full plans application where Southwark is the building control body, not a building notice. Southwark says a building notice is only for small, simple domestic work and cannot be used in schools, offices, shops or workplaces, and it requires full plans for offices and similar buildings. A registered building control approver is the other route. Either way, the drawings and fire strategy are approved before strip-out, so the design work comes first in the programme.

The checks are about people getting out and getting in. Part B covers the means of escape from an upper floor, fire doors and alarm coverage when new partitions change the room layout. Part M covers access and the accessible WC. Part L covers lighting efficiency and controls. On a larger scheme, Southwark Plan 2022 Policy P69 requires a BREEAM Excellent rating for non-domestic refurbishment involving conversion, extension or change of use of non-residential floorspace over 500sqm.

Peckham office stock, Class MA and the end of the lease

Office space in Peckham is protected from quiet loss to housing. Southwark's non-immediate Article 4 direction removing the Class MA right to change offices (Class E(g)(i)) to dwellings came into force on 1 August 2022, and its Class E to residential direction covers town centres and shopping frontages. For an office tenant this is context, not a task: offices in the town centre cannot switch to flats under Class MA, which helps keep upper floors available as workspace.

The lease end matters as much as the start. A dilapidations clause may require you to strip out your partitions, ceilings and cabling and reinstate the original layout, so keep the drawings of what you added. A commercial client also has duties of its own under the CDM Regulations, including appointing a principal designer and principal contractor where more than one contractor is involved, and allowing time for the work. We run the site within Southwark's noisy-work hours and schedule quieter tasks for after hours only with the landlord's agreement.

• Dilapidations and reinstatement works at the end of an office lease
• Office carpet tiles and sheet vinyl in tea points and WCs
• Small power to desks, floor boxes and perimeter trunking

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 6 statistical areas in Peckham. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Related reading for Peckham businesses planning office fit-out: commercial fit-out in Peckham, office fit-out across Southwark, what a main building contractor does, what a snagging list covers, office fit-out anywhere in London and Lighting Guide.

Why Choose GS Renovation in Peckham

Office tenants in Peckham usually have a lease start and a date they need desks working, and the fit-out fills the gap. We work from the landlord's licence, your designer's drawings and the approved building control plans, and give you a programme showing strip-out, first fix, inspections and handover. One site lead coordinates our trades with your IT supplier. A registered electrician certifies the installation, and the certificates your landlord and insurer ask for come back in one handover file.

• Founder with 30+ years of hands-on experience
• Lease reinstatement clauses read before any partition is fixed to the structure
• A programme built back from the date your staff move in

Checked by Abdelaaziz Saaid, founder and director of GS Renovation Ltd (Companies House no. 14611254).