The housing stock in Kensington
Stucco-fronted terraces of four and five storeys, garden square houses, mansion flats and a scattering of mews cottages behind the main streets.
Kensington houses are technically demanding. Grade II listing, listed party walls, basement engineering under a stucco facade and a Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea planning department that expects proper drawings and proper trades. We work here every week. Our teams know the streets, the neighbours' surveyors and the site logistics you need to run a full refurbishment on a Cornwall Gardens crescent without upsetting the entire postcode.
Most of our Kensington instructions come from owners of stucco-fronted family houses, mansion flats and lateral conversions, garden-square townhouses, and from clients moving between Chelsea, Notting Hill, Holland Park, Knightsbridge who already know the type of building they are buying into.
Planning and consent with the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea
Almost every street west of Exhibition Road sits inside a conservation area, and a large share of the stucco terraces are listed as groups rather than individually.
RBKC is one of the most demanding planning authorities in the country. Basement development is controlled by a specific policy limiting depth and footprint, and applications are expected to arrive with proper structural drawings, a construction traffic management plan and a basement impact assessment.
Our approach is the same every time: establish the constraints before anything is designed, agree the route to consent with the client, and price the job against the scheme that will actually be approved rather than the one that looks best on a first sketch.
The work we carry out in Kensington
The bulk of our Kensington work is whole-house refurbishment, basement excavation and underpinning, lime plaster and joinery restoration, and lateral flat conversions in mansion blocks.
Whole-house refurbishment. Strip back, structural, joinery, stone and finishes across four or five storeys, run to a programme you can plan a life around.
Basement engineering. Underpinning and lightwell excavation to RBKC's standards, coordinated with a structural engineer and party wall surveyors on the payroll.
Listed refurbishment. Lime plaster, correct joinery profiles, breathable substrates and conservation officer sign-off handled without drama.
Access, neighbours and running a tidy site
Skips need permits, deliveries are timed around residents' parking, and scaffold licences over the footway are policed closely. We run small, tidy sites because the borough expects nothing less.
Every trade on a Kensington project is directly employed by Ushii. There is no chain of outside firms to chase, no pricing surprises when a trade turns up, and one team responsible for the work from strip-out to snagging.
Realistic programmes in Kensington
Nine to fourteen months for a five-storey house without a basement. Add three to six months for excavation underneath.
Those figures assume consent is in place and decisions are made when they are asked for. The single biggest cause of delay on prime London projects is not construction, it is a client decision waiting on a specification that was never finalised. We front-load those choices into the programme so they are made calmly rather than under pressure.
Talk to us about your Kensington project
If you are planning work on a property in Kensington or nearby in Chelsea, Notting Hill, Holland Park, Knightsbridge, the useful first step is a site visit. We will walk the building, tell you what the council is likely to want, and give you an honest view of cost and programme before you commit to drawings.
Get in touch through the contact page and a director will arrange to meet you at the property.