Builders in Brent

Brent is really two places when it comes to housing. The south of the borough, around Kilburn, Queen's Park, Kensal Rise and Willesden, grew in the late Victorian and Edwardian years as the railways arrived, so its streets are lined with terraced and semi-detached houses in London stock brick, many of them now divided into flats. The north, around Wembley, Preston, Kingsbury and Kenton, filled up between the wars after the Metropolitan Railway and the 1924 British Empire Exhibition at Wembley Park, with semi-detached houses that have hipped roofs, bays and front gardens.

At the 2021 Census, 43% of Brent's 118,600 households lived in a house (22% semi-detached, 15% terraced and 6% detached) and 54% lived in a flat, including flats in converted houses. That mix shapes what is possible. Houses usually keep permitted development rights for lofts and rear extensions, while flats and maisonettes always need planning permission to extend.

On interwar semis, the common projects are a hip-to-gable loft conversion with a rear dormer and a single-storey rear kitchen extension. On Victorian terraces, they are rear dormers or mansards, infill extensions along the side return beside the back outrigger, and careful refurbishment of original features.

Brent Council is the planning authority. Its Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD, adopted on 16 January 2025, replaced the 2018 guidance and is unusually specific. For example, it says single-storey rear extensions to terraced and semi-detached homes could be up to 6 metres deep (8 metres for detached homes), as long as they take up no more than half the garden. We summarise its rules on our Brent extensions and Brent loft conversions pages.

The SPD is not intended for conservation areas. Brent has 22, including Barn Hill, Queen's Park, Mapesbury, Roe Green Village, Sudbury Court, Northwick Circle and Wembley High Street, and the council says all of its residential conservation areas are covered by Article 4 directions. These remove some permitted development rights, so work such as altering roofs, windows or front gardens can need planning permission. Each area's map, Article 4 direction and design guide is on the council's conservation pages.

Wherever you live, work that affects a party wall needs notice to the neighbours under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and structural work needs Building Regulations approval. Around Wembley Stadium, event-day parking restrictions also affect skips and deliveries.