Building work in Shepherd's Bush: area guide

This is our area guide to building work in Shepherd's Bush (W12, Hammersmith and Fulham): the housing, the council rules that apply (Hammersmith and Fulham Council for planning) and every service we offer here. For whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Shepherd's Bush.

A large share of W12 addresses are flats inside houses. The period terraces around Shepherd's Bush Green, the market and the streets running towards Westfield London and Television Centre were mostly divided into maisonettes and conversions long ago, so much of the work here happens one floor at a time within somebody else's building. That puts leaseholds, freeholder consents and neighbours directly below into every decision, and it means the first question is usually the soil connection or the lease, not the design. We coordinate building control applications and inspections, with one point of contact for the whole job.

Roughly 13,640 dwellings sit on the valuation list for Shepherd's Bush. 12% are houses and 87% flats, and by age 53% predate 1919, 17% are interwar and 29% post-war. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Shepherd's Bush North, Shepherd's Bush West, Shepherd's Bush South and White City. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Kitchen and bathroom renovations in a converted flat start at the soil connection

The biggest constraint in a W12 conversion is drainage. Waste needs fall, and the existing soil connection was placed to suit a layout somebody else designed, often with pipework run externally down the rear elevation. Moving a bathroom across a flat sounds simple until the fall is measured and the floor build up needed eats the ceiling height below. The same applies to a kitchen renovation that moves the sink. We check what the existing runs can give before a layout is agreed, and where a pumped solution is necessary we say so at design stage, not once the old suite is in a skip.

Floors are the second constraint. Cutting joists for pipework is how a lot of existing damage was done in these houses, and there are limits to where a notch or hole can go before the joist is weakened. New wet areas need proper tanking and a floor that does not flex, or the tiling and grout will tell on you within a year. The ceiling below belongs to a neighbour, so we improve acoustic separation while the floor is open, which costs very little then and a great deal afterwards.

Extending at the back of a Shepherd's Bush terrace means finding the sewer first

Where the ground floor flat comes with the garden, a house extension job at the rear is the obvious way to gain a proper kitchen. The complication in W12 is what is buried in that garden. These terraces were built with shared drainage, so a public sewer or a lateral drain serving several houses often runs directly under where the extension wants to go. Building over or close to it needs an agreement with the water authority, and the foundation design responds to the pipe rather than pretending it is not there. This is checked at survey, not the day excavation starts.

Where the property is a flat rather than a whole house, the freeholder's licence to alter comes before any of it. Beyond that the usual sequence applies. Foundations go to a depth the engineer sets after the ground and nearby trees are considered, the opening into the existing house is RSJ installation built to that design, and building control inspects excavation, damp proofing, structure and insulation as the work proceeds. Access in these streets is normally through the house, so floors and the hallway are protected from day one.

Where to go next for work in Shepherd's Bush: kitchen renovation in Shepherd's Bush, house extensions in Shepherd's Bush, the Hammersmith and Fulham area guide, building work in Hammersmith, building work in Notting Hill and Full House Renovation Cost.