LCCL Construction Wins LABC Building Excellence Award 2026: Best Conversion or Alteration to an Existing Home, London
By Anderson & the LCCL Construction Team | Finchley N3
We are proud to share that LCCL Construction has been named a London Regional Winner at the LABC Building Excellence Awards 2026, in the category Best Conversion or Alteration to an Existing Home, for our Weech Road project in Hampstead NW6. The win is listed on the LABC London winners page — Weech Road, North West London; Project Team: LCCL Construction; Local Authority: London Borough of Barnet.
It is our second LABC Building Excellence Award in three years. In 2024 our Bohun Grove project in East Barnet EN4 won Best Residential Extension in London. This post is about what Weech Road involved, why LABC's judges single out projects like it, and what the award means for the people who hire us.
What the LABC Building Excellence Awards are
LABC — Local Authority Building Control — is the body representing the building control teams of every council in England and Wales. Its Building Excellence Awards are the only construction awards judged by the inspectors who actually visited the site: projects are nominated by the local authority building control surveyor who inspected the work from foundations to completion, and judged on how well they were built, how technical difficulties were solved, and how they went beyond the minimum the regulations ask for. Regional winners go forward to the LABC Grand Finals, which for 2026 are held on 22 January 2027 at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Park Lane.
For a design & build company that is the point: the award is not for the photographs. It is the opinion of the building inspector who signed the job off.
Weech Road, Hampstead NW6: the project
Weech Road was a top-floor flat with an unused roof space above it. The brief was to turn it into a penthouse duplex: relocate the kitchen and living space up into a new loft level, add a bedroom, build two new bathrooms, and open the top of the building to the view across central London. The result is a two-level home where the living space has the light and the outlook and the bedrooms sit below it — the reverse of the original flat.
Structure. A new floor level inside an existing roof on a converted house, with the loads carried down through a building other people live in. Structural design and calculations, temporary works and the party wall process with the neighbours either side were the first six weeks of the job, not the last.
Planning. A flat has no permitted development rights, so the scheme went through a full householder application with the London Borough of Barnet, including the roof terrace and the change to the roof form.
Building control. Fire strategy for a duplex at the top of a converted house — protected escape, interlinked alarms, fire doors — alongside the thermal, acoustic and structural requirements, inspected at every stage by the council's building control surveyor who later put the project forward for the award.
Finish. An oak staircase up to the new level, a loft bathroom in marble and brass, an open-plan kitchen and living space with doors onto the balcony, and a roof terrace looking over London.
You can see the full set of photographs on the Weech Road project page, and the structural and planning routes are explained in our guides to attic conversions in flats and loft conversion planning permission.
Why it won
LABC's categories reward the difficult conversions — the ones where the building was never designed for what it has become. A penthouse on top of a converted period house is exactly that: every structural, fire and acoustic decision has to work for the people living below as well as the client above, and the inspector sees every one of them. Winning the London region in Best Conversion or Alteration to an Existing Home says that the way Weech Road was engineered and built, not just how it looks, stood out among the projects inspected across the capital this year.
It is also the second time in three years that a Barnet building control team has put an LCCL project forward and seen it win.
Anderson's advice
“Most clients underestimate the party wall timeline — it can add 3 months to a semi-detached project.” On a top-floor conversion in a terrace of converted houses it is more, not less: the new floor beams bear into both party walls, the flats below are affected, and the freeholder is involved as well as the neighbours. Weech Road ran to programme because the party wall notices, the structural design and the planning application were all started together, before anyone was tempted to begin on site. That sequencing is the unglamorous part of an award-winning project and it is where most of the delays we are asked to rescue come from.
What the award means if you are planning a project
Two LABC Building Excellence Awards in three years, both for projects inspected and nominated by the council's own building control surveyors, is the most independent evidence we can offer of how we build. The same team — architectural design, structural engineering and construction under one contract — works on every loft conversion, extension, renovation and new build we take on, from a rear dormer in Finchley to a penthouse in Hampstead. Every project carries a 12-month workmanship guarantee and a 10-year LABC structural warranty.
The 2024 award: Bohun Grove, East Barnet EN4
Weech Road follows our first LABC Building Excellence Award, in 2024, for Best Residential Extension in London. That project was Bohun Grove in East Barnet EN4: a 1930s semi-detached house transformed with a rear extension and open-plan kitchen with skylights and full-height glazing onto a landscaped garden, a hip-to-gable loft conversion, two new bathrooms, enlarged bedrooms and new windows throughout. It remains the project we point to when someone asks what a whole-house design & build programme looks like from the first sketch to the last plant in the garden.
See the Bohun Grove project page for the full story and photographs, and our awards and accreditations page for both LABC awards alongside our Best of Houzz awards and NFB membership.
What our clients say
“Super professional and on the ball at all times. All his teams are excellent and hard working. They are conscientious and want the job to be well done.”
— Ludovic, Reviews.io
Frequently asked questions
Who judges the LABC Building Excellence Awards?
Local authority building control surveyors. Projects are nominated by the inspector who visited the site, and judged on build quality, how technical problems were solved and how far the work goes beyond the minimum the building regulations require — not on photographs alone.
Is LCCL Construction a national LABC winner?
LCCL is a London Regional Winner for 2026 in the category Best Conversion or Alteration to an Existing Home. Regional winners go forward to the LABC Grand Finals on 22 January 2027, where the national winners are announced.
Does an LABC award change what my project costs?
No. Our 2026 ranges are published on every cost guide and in the instant estimate, and they are the same whether the project is a Velux loft or a penthouse. What the award tells you is how the work is built and inspected.
Get a figure for your own project
To book a free 30-minute consultation call about your loft conversion or renovation, call LCCL Construction on 020 8037 7332 or get an instant estimate online — six questions, about two minutes, and you see a real range for your postcode on screen. Finchley N3 based, covering all of London and Hertfordshire.
One team, one contract, one point of contact — from first sketch to handover.
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