House and home extensions in London - are they still possible?

Building a house extension in London is possibly the most expensive form of house extension there can be in the UK.

The whole living environment in London seems to conspire against the Building Designer and the Builder alike from compact and compressed built environments to anti-social parking constraints. From constant negative neighbour complaints to the continuous need for party wall act compliance. From no on site storage provision to no rear access for the rear extension. The list of constraints is simply endless for most parts of London and other city centres yet the home owners desire to add extra living space in these London type locations seems insatiable.

I personally steer well clear of London house extension design.  It takes a certain type of building design agent to successfully overcome all the obstacles (physical & mental).  I take my hat off to all London architects offering design services for home extensions in London.  How they ever locate a builder willing to take on these added problems at a fair price is beyond my thinking.

For these reasons, most home extensions in London are possibly twice the price of building an extension within the Shires'.  Many London home extensions do not have the side or rear garden space for the normal type of new volume type extension which is why loft conversions in London are perhaps more common than in the shires or home counties.

Other London house extensions are for basements at possibly 5 times the price of building a traditional new volume side or rear extension.  This again is another growing trend for adding extra living space within London and possibly demonstrates how desperate these people are.  There have been many failures too - I would not touch this form of retrofitting a new basement under an existing property for all the tea in China - they must be mad!

The money and income needed to extend a home in London must be massif to accommodate these levels of London house extension costs.  So is extending a home in London a sustainable and viable proposition?  The answer is probably yes while certain sectors of the business world pay people obscene sums in salary or bonuses for intangible products or services.