Office Fit-Out Stratford

Office fit-out in Stratford serves a centre that Newham Local Plan 2018 designates as the borough's Metropolitan Centre, with catchments reaching over several boroughs. Around Stratford station and the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park that means office floors in newer buildings, and closer to the old high street it means suites over shops and small studios. We take on the smaller jobs in that range: one floor or one suite, stripped, partitioned, lit and handed back ready for desks.

For Stratford, 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 Stratford: we build the office partitions, ceilings, lighting and finishes as one contract and coordinate the IT supplier and specialist trades around them.

Cat A and Cat B on a Stratford office floor

The first question on a Stratford office is which category of fit-out the landlord hands over. Cat A is the landlord's base finish: raised floor, suspended ceiling, lighting, heating and cooling, and toilets to the core. Cat B is the tenant's layer on top: partitions, meeting rooms, a tea point, glazed screens, data outlets, furniture and branding. A floor in one of the newer buildings near Stratford station often comes as Cat A, so the tenant's brief is Cat B only.

An older suite above a shop usually has neither. There we strip back to the structure, check what the ceiling void and floor will take, and build the Cat A items first, then the tenant's layout. Data cabling is run in coordination with your IT supplier, who terminates and tests it. Keeping the two categories apart on the quotation shows you what the landlord should already have provided and what your business is paying for.

Newham Building Control for office partitions, escape and lighting

An office fit-out that changes the layout or services is normally building work under the regulations, and Newham runs its own service, Newham Building Control, which covers Stratford. A new partition layout changes travel distances and escape routes, so the plans are checked against Part B for fire and means of escape, Part M for access and accessible toilets, and Part L for lighting and heating controls. Because an office falls under the fire safety order, a building notice cannot be used, so the route is full plans.

Newham Building Control decides a full plans application within five weeks of receiving it, or within two months by agreement. That period sits inside the programme, between agreeing the layout and ordering glazed screens and doors, so the approved drawings match what is built. When the work is finished, a notice of completion must reach Newham Building Control within 5 days, and we supply the electrical and fire alarm certificates that go with it.

Office stock, Class MA and Article 4 around Stratford

Class MA of the General Permitted Development Order 2015 lets a building in Class E, which includes offices, change to Class C3 homes through prior approval, where it has been in Class E use for two years and is not listed. That matters to a Stratford tenant only as background to the office stock. It is one reason office floors above shops can go to flats, why the supply of small suites shifts, and why a landlord may offer a short lease on space they are weighing up for residential use.

London Plan Policy E1 asks boroughs to use Article 4 Directions so that the CAZ, the Northern Isle of Dogs and other office clusters are not undermined by office to residential rights. Whether any such direction covers a particular Stratford building is for the landlord and their advisers to check with Newham. For the tenant, the practical question is the length and terms of the lease, which decide how much of the fit-out is worth building.

Working in an occupied Stratford building, and CDM duties

An office floor in Stratford is rarely empty around you. Newham's standard site hours are 8am to 6pm Monday to Friday and 8am to 1pm Saturday, with Sundays and bank holidays closed, and a building with other tenants usually sets tighter rules for noisy work. Noisy work such as core drilling or strip-out outside those hours needs Section 61 Control of Pollution Act consent, applied for at least 28 days before works start. With homes nearby it is rarely granted.

A business commissioning a fit-out is a commercial client under the CDM Regulations, and that brings duties of its own: appointing the right people, allowing enough time and resources, and providing the pre-construction information you hold, such as the landlord's asbestos survey. We explain those duties at the start. At lease end, the same survey work helps with dilapidations and reinstatement, where the lease requires the floor to go back to Cat A.

• Strip-out of the previous tenant's office, with disposal
• Glazed screens and glass-fronted meeting rooms
• Reception areas and internal joinery

VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Stratford East, Stratford Central, West Ham & Stratford Park and Carpenters Estate & Stratford New Town. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Two or three things usually come up alongside office fit-out on a Stratford job: commercial fit-out in Stratford, office fit-out across Newham, what a main building contractor does, how snagging works at handover, how we handle office fit-out across London and Snagging List Guide.

Trusted Office Fit-Out in Stratford

An office fit-out asks a small business to deal with a landlord, a building manager, IT and building control at once. Abdelaaziz Saaid, the founder, visits the floor himself, reads the landlord's pack and lease plan, and prices the Cat A and Cat B work separately against a written programme. You deal with one contact from strip-out to handover. A registered electrician certifies the electrics, the structural engineer we appoint checks any new loads, and your designer's drawings are what we build to.

• Full plans building control coordinated for the new office layout from the outset
• Honest updates if a date or a detail has to move
• Every new office circuit certified to BS 7671 by a registered electrician

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