Building work in Sidcup: area guide

This is our area guide to building work in Sidcup (DA14, DA15, Bexley): the housing, the council rules that apply (Bexley Council for planning) and every service we offer here. For whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Sidcup.

Sidcup offers something rarer in London: houses with space around them. The streets between the High Street and Lamorbey Park, and out towards Foots Cray Meadows, hold interwar and post-war semis, a good number of detached properties and a large share of flats, and many of the houses have a driveway, a side gap and a substantial garden. That geometry opens options inner London does not have, particularly wraparound and side additions that widen a house rather than only lengthening it, which makes house extensions the most common route here. We coordinate the design, appoint the structural engineer and build to their drawings, with building control applications and inspections managed as part of the service.

Sidcup has about 15,110 homes on the Council Tax list: 12% pre-1919, 30% interwar and 57% post-war, with flats making up 40% and houses 60%. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Sidcup West, Sidcup East, Lamorbey and Foots Cray Meadows. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Extending sideways as well as backwards needs a frame

A side gap of two or three metres changes what is possible. Instead of a narrow kitchen running the length of the back, you can form an L shaped space that wraps around the original rear corner and produces a genuinely wide room. The structural consequence is that you are opening two elevations rather than one, which usually means a frame rather than a single beam: RSJ installation designed by the engineer and built exactly as drawn. The junction where the new roof meets the existing hip is the detail that decides whether the finished house looks planned or bolted together.

Matching materials matters more on a house that is visible from the road on two sides. Interwar brick weathers to a colour that new stock will not match straight from the pallet, so we source as close as we can and consider where a deliberate change of material reads better than a poor match. Roof tiles are the same problem, and sometimes the answer is to take tiles from a less visible slope for the new elevation and use new ones where they show least. Planning position for a side extension is worth confirming with Bexley Council early, since side additions are treated differently from rear ones.

Sinks, bathrooms and the services behind them set the layout

A kitchen renovation at the back of a 1930s house is rarely just joinery. The sink and appliances end up several metres from where the original drainage was laid, so waste runs need reworking with proper falls to an existing manhole whose position was set for a very different layout. Gas and water supplies usually enter at the front, and the runs to the new location want doing in one go while floors are up. Electrics need a circuit design that suits modern appliances rather than more sockets spurred off whatever was already there.

A bathroom renovation in these houses has its own quirk. The original was often placed over the stairs or in the rear addition, with the soil pipe on the outside wall, and a modern layout with a separate shower puts demands on both drainage and water pressure that the existing installation was never sized for. We work out the pressure and the drainage before the suite is chosen, tank wet areas properly, and make sure the floor does not flex under tiling. A five year guarantee applies to the installation work we do ourselves.

Where to go next for work in Sidcup: house extensions in Sidcup, the Bexley area guide, building work in Welling, building work in Chislehurst and Full House Renovation Cost.