Building work in Wood Green: area guide

This is our area guide to building work in Wood Green (N22, Haringey): the housing, the council rules that apply (Haringey Council for planning) and every service we offer here. For whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Wood Green.

N22 covers two quite different sorts of home, and they route to different jobs. Away from the centre there are Edwardian terraces with generous bays and original detail still in place. Closer to the High Road and out towards Ducketts Common there are purpose built flats and converted houses, which on VOA figures are most of the homes here, and where the lease rather than the brickwork decides what is possible. We appoint structural engineers where loads change and build to their design, with building control applications and inspections coordinated with Haringey Council.

Wood Green has around 9,700 homes on the Council Tax list: 29% post-war, 4% interwar and 67% predate 1919, with 62% flats and 38% houses. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for Wood Green North, Wood Green South and Noel Park. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Mansion flats need the licence to alter first

In a mansion block the first document that matters is the lease, not the floor plan. It will normally forbid structural alterations without the freeholder's written licence, place conditions on floor coverings for acoustic reasons, and reserve the shared services in the risers and under the floors. Flats hold no permitted development rights whatsoever, so nothing on the outside of the building can be altered as of right. Understanding those three points early prevents a design that has to be redrawn once the managing agent responds. Reading the lease properly is an hour well spent.

What can be achieved inside a flat here is often more than owners assume. A kitchen renovation or bathroom renovation can go a long way, non structural partitions can move with consent, and services can be rerouted where the floor depth allows. The constraints are practical: noise transfer to the flat below, waste runs to a fixed stack, a single stair for every delivery, and agreed working hours. We hand the agent a complete pack, drawings, structural input and proof of cover, before any start date is quoted, so the consent runs in parallel with the pricing.

Edwardian terraces off the High Road open up at the back

The Edwardian houses around Wood Green are broader across the front and taller inside than the Victorian stock further east, which gives more to work with. Bays, deep skirtings, panelled doors and moulded cornice survive in many of them. The usual project keeps that front half intact and reworks the back: opening the kitchen towards the garden, sorting out a rear addition that was never insulated, and reclaiming a bathroom squeezed into the closet wing decades ago. Those three moves change how the whole house is used, and together they are a home renovation job rather than a single room.

Any opening through a load bearing wall is engineer designed RSJ installation, and because these are terraces the beam bearings frequently land in the wall shared with next door, which brings duties under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996. That notice is served by you as the building owner, and we programme the works around the statutory periods rather than treating them as a surprise. Alexandra Palace is close enough that event traffic occasionally affects deliveries, so we time the heavier stages accordingly.

Where to go next for work in Wood Green: kitchen renovation in Wood Green, house extensions in Wood Green, the Haringey area guide, building work in Muswell Hill, building work in Crouch End and Building Regulations Explained.