Building work in Brent: area guide

Brent Council is the planning and building control authority for Brent, which covers HA9, HA0, NW2, NW6, NW9 and NW10 and takes in Wembley, Willesden, Kilburn and Harlesden. This is our area guide to building work in the borough; for whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Brent.

Brent has about 135,080 homes on the Council Tax list: 28% pre-1919, 32% interwar and 40% post-war, with flats making up 62% and houses 38%. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 35 statistical areas in Brent. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Planning and building control in Brent

What Brent Council publishes about building work in the borough, with each point linked to the council page it comes from:

• Brent Council states that there are 22 conservation areas in Brent. brent.gov.uk
• Brent's article 4 direction requiring planning permission for change of use from dwellings (C3) to small HMOs (C4) was confirmed on 3 February 2022 and took effect on 1 November 2022. brent.gov.uk
• All of Brent's residential conservation areas are covered by article 4 directions, which remove some of the owner's permitted development rights. brent.gov.uk
• Brent has nine Grade II* listed buildings and around 200 Grade II listed buildings. brent.gov.uk
• Brent's Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD allows single storey rear extensions to attached homes of up to 6 metres from the original rear wall. brent.gov.uk
• Brent Council's own building control service approves plans and inspects building work on site to make sure building work in Brent meets the regulations. brent.gov.uk
• Brent Building Control takes either a full plans application or, in certain circumstances, a building notice application. brent.gov.uk
• In Brent a building notice applies to residential use only and covers smaller projects such as creating a bathroom, recovering a roof, minor structural changes and small extensions. brent.gov.uk
• Brent's Basement SPD says a basement should not be wider than the original house, extend further than 3m from the rear or be more than 1 storey deep. brent.gov.uk

With 62% of Brent's homes flats, the lease comes first on many jobs. Flats have no householder permitted development, so an extension or most external changes to a flat need planning permission from Brent Council as well as the freeholder's consent. The 38% that are houses keep the householder rights within the size limits, and in a conservation area a single-storey rear extension survives unless an Article 4 direction removes it. Taking out a wall or a chimney breast is building regulations work, not planning, unless the building is listed.

Reviewed jobs in Brent

Our MyBuilder profile holds 1 verified review from jobs in Brent. The job titles are the customers' own, as published:

• Install new worktop, Wembley, 10 Jul 2024 (5 out of 5)

Read every review, including the ones from elsewhere, on our reviews page.

Brent takes in NW2, NW6, NW9, NW10, HA0 and HA9, a lot of ground and building types, so start with which one you are in. Red-brick mansion flats and Victorian terraces around Kilburn and Queen's Park, late-Victorian railway housing in Harlesden and Willesden, and interwar semis stretching out to Wembley and Kingsbury. Flats are most of the housing, a larger share than in most suburban boroughs, so the lease decides the route on many of the jobs we quote.

NW6 mansion flats and period conversions start at the lease

The red-brick blocks around Kilburn and West Hampstead were built as flats, with solid masonry walls, timber floors and a communal stair. Drainage positions are fixed, so a kitchen renovation or bathroom renovation is planned around them, with the floor build-up improved for sound and the piecemeal, decades-old wiring replaced.

The lease governs a lot of it. Written consent from the freeholder or managing agent normally precedes any layout change, so a moved wall is a structural alteration job starting from that licence. The lease may also set working hours, floor coverings and how materials reach the flat. We supply insurance details and a method statement up front, protect the communal areas, and bag waste out rather than assume a skip fits.

Harlesden terraces and Wembley semis grow differently

Among the houses, Harlesden and Willesden are full of tight late-Victorian terraces built for railway workers: two rooms deep, a narrow rear addition, solid nine-inch walls and very little garden. Wembley and Kingsbury are the opposite, interwar semis with cavity walls, hipped roofs and side access. Extensions dominate in both, for different reasons, and either way the addition is a house extension job.

Brent Council has designated conservation areas in several parts of the borough, and where they apply the permitted development route narrows to a modest single-storey rear addition, or closes altogether where an Article 4 direction covers the street. Logistics differ too. At Wembley, deliveries are planned around event-day road restrictions near the stadium. In the terraced streets, controlled parking, skip permits and space for a scaffold tower decide the programme, including when steel for a rear opening can arrive. All of it is settled first.

Popular starting points in Brent: kitchen renovation in Brent, house extensions across Brent, builders in London and Listed Building Renovation.