Miliband's Primrose Hill mansion gets even bigger

Labour MP David Miliband and his concert violinist wife Louise Shackleton are converts to the “don’t move, improve” movement.

The couple have applied to Camden council to extend their five-storey late-Victorian home in Primrose Hill, north London — a move that could net them a £65,000 profit.

The former home secretary and his wife hope to increase living space at the basement level with a glazed extension, and a new roof terrace above leading from their ground-floor kitchen.

Similar properties in the area are worth between £2.5 million and £2.75 million, said Zack Madison, a negotiator at Savills estate agents. He believes the project could stack up financially for Labour leader Ed Miliband’s older brother. “Properties in that area achieve £1,150 and £1,350 a square foot,” he explained. “A project like this will cost up to £50,000 depending on the specification. But if they increase the property by, say, 100sq ft, they would increase its value by about £115,000.”

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The couple are joining many other middle-class homeowners signing up to major home improvements. More than 66,000 Londoners have made plans to significantly improve their homes in the last year, proof that the moribund market is forcing ever increasing numbers of homeowners to join the home improvement movement.

According to new figures by Barbour ABI, which monitors the levels of planning applications being lodged across the UK, the Milibands are amongst 2,558 Camden residents who applied for permission to improve or extend their homes in the last year.

London’s busiest borough was Westminster, with 6052 applications recorded during the same period. Other council’s with high demand include Barnet (3,359), Kensington and Chelsea (3,058) and Wandsworth (3,333).

Adam Valentine, group content director at Barbour ABI, said he expected the upward trend to continue – in 2010 some 55,000 London homeowners applied for permission to extend their homes.

“I think that the areas where we are seeing a large volume of home improvements are those where prices are still rising. These are the areas where people will seek to increase the size of their homes,” he said.

According to the latest data from the Land Registry this suggests that home improvements in 2013 will be focussed on Westminster (house prices up 13.9 per cent year-on-year), Kensington and Chelsea (up 12.1 per cent), Hackney (up 10.5 per cent), Camden (up 10.2 per cent), and Islington (up 10 per cent).

The least applications were fielded last year in Barking (483), Waltham Forest and Bexley (1,352) – all areas where owners may have calculated that the cost of building work does not merit the increase in property price they could expect from increasing floorspace, and where price performance has been weak.

Madison agreed that the areas where owners can immediately profit from extending their homes will be London’s high value prime locations. But he added: “If it is your family home and you are taking a long term view then there is still a justification, because prices will slowly go up. But if you are looking at the immediate financial implications then location is all important.”