Nearly two Southwark households in three live in a purpose-built block of flats; a weekly cleaner for one of those flats costs £23 an hour, for three hours or more.

The share is 64.4% at the 2021 Census, and only 9.6% of households live in a converted or shared house, so flats here mostly mean blocks and estates. Terraced houses make up 14.3%. Tenure leans to social renting: 39.7% of households rent from a council or housing association, 28.9% own, 28.7% rent privately and 2.4% are in shared ownership.

Southwark homes compared

The borough changes a great deal from north to south, and the length of a clean follows the home.

Home	Where Southwark has most of them	Regular visit	Deep clean
Flat in a purpose-built block	Borough & Bankside, North Walworth, London Bridge & West Bermondsey and Chaucer, where blocks make up between 82% and 86%	Three hours, £69 on a weekly rota	Two cleaners for three hours, £186
Flat in a converted house	Goose Green (35.8% of households) and Dulwich Hill (31.0%)	Three hours, longer with stairs inside the flat	From £186, with extra time for period mouldings
Terraced house	14.3% of households across the borough	Usually longer than the minimum, agreed by phone	Two cleaners or more, for longer than three hours
Rented flat at the end of a tenancy	Surrey Docks (41.2% private renting) and Borough & Bankside (41.0%)	Usually stops when the tenancy ends	The fixed end of tenancy price, £207 for a one-bed

We set the hours from the number of bedrooms, bathrooms and floors you give on the form, and anything above the minimum is agreed on the phone before the day.

Parking across 31 controlled zones

Southwark has 31 controlled parking zones, which between them cover about three fifths of the borough. Hours vary by zone. Most run in weekday daytime, while C1 in Bankside is controlled every day from 8am to 11pm, and outside a zone’s hours no permit is needed.

Bays come in three kinds. Permit bays take permit holders only; shared-use bays take residents and PayByPhone users; PayByPhone bays take PayByPhone users only. A visitor without a permit uses one of the last two. Pay-by-phone costs £8.60 an hour in zones C1, C2, D, F, G and GR and £5.70 in all the others, with higher rates for diesel. The council’s permit list has nothing for a tradesperson working at a private home. Its business permits are for businesses that operate inside a zone, and the estate business permit is only for contractors and staff doing essential council work on an estate.

Licensing and a previous tenant’s leftovers

Selective licensing runs under four designations. Designation 1 (Newington and Champion Hill) and designation 2 (Faraday, Goose Green and St Giles) run from 1 March 2022 to 1 March 2027. Designations 3 and 4 added 14 wards from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2028, from London Bridge & West Bermondsey and Rotherhithe to Peckham Rye and Dulwich Wood. In those wards every privately rented home outside HMO licensing needs a selective licence, and additional licensing covers HMOs of three or more people in two or more households across the whole borough until 1 March 2027 unless it is revoked earlier. The council’s licensing page lists the wards.

Clearing a flat is a separate matter. Southwark’s bulky waste collection costs £37 for up to 10 items, booked and paid online, with the items out by 6am, and it is for a resident’s own household things only. Landlords and property managers are sent to the business waste service, even for what a previous tenant left behind; the Reuse and Recycling Centre is free for residents. Get the furniture out first, so the floors and skirting underneath can be cleaned with the rest.

Period homes are protected right across the borough. The conservation areas run from Borough High Street, Tooley Street and Bermondsey Street in the north to Dulwich Village, Dulwich Wood and Rye Lane Peckham in the south, and the pages for Bermondsey, Peckham and Dulwich go street by street.

Regular, deep and moving-out cleaning in Southwark

Regular cleaning is £23 an hour on a weekly rota or £24 fortnightly, three hours a visit at least. A deep clean is £26 per cleaner-hour plus £30 for equipment and detergents, from £186, and one-off work starts at £67; the price list has the rest. Where there is no free parking for a one-off clean, we add the bay’s cost on the day, never more than £40.

The weekly visit covers the kitchen, the bathroom, dusting, beds and floors. The deep clean adds the inside of cupboards and appliances, the space behind movable furniture, skirting, door frames and radiators. The team brings its own equipment and products, and your water and electricity stay on.

The end of tenancy clean is fixed by size, £156 for a studio to £425 for four bedrooms. If the inventory clerk or agent marks something we cleaned, tell us within 48 hours and we return at no charge. Carpet cleaning uses hot water extraction from £36 a bedroom, with rugs cleaned where they lie, and oven cleaning starts at £77 for a single oven, which is usable again the same evening.

Booking from SE1 to SE22

Book with the form or ring 020 3734 1438; you can ring any time. Cleans happen between 8am and 7pm, Monday to Sunday. We phone back to agree the day and the price for the home. A 50% deposit secures it and the remainder is paid after the clean.

Questions about cleaning in Southwark

Is there a parking permit for cleaners in Southwark?

None that the council lists. Its permits cover residents, visitors, estates, businesses, health workers and carers, with nothing for a tradesperson working at a private home, so a cleaner parks in a paid or shared-use bay.

Who takes away furniture a tenant left in a Southwark flat?

The landlord or agent, through business waste. The council’s bulky service is for residents’ own household items, and Southwark directs landlords, agents and property managers to the business waste service for a previous tenant’s leftovers.

Do you clean in Bankside, where parking runs until 11pm?

Yes. Zone C1 is controlled every day from 8am to 11pm and pay-by-phone there is £8.60 an hour, so a one-off clean in Bankside always needs a paid bay.

Which Southwark wards are under selective licensing?

Nineteen across four designations: Newington, Champion Hill, Faraday, Goose Green and St Giles from March 2022, and 14 more from 1 November 2023, including Surrey Docks, Old Kent Road, Camberwell Green, Peckham and Dulwich Hill. Private lets there need a licence unless they are licensed HMOs.

How much is a weekly cleaner in Southwark?

£23 an hour, or £24 an hour fortnightly, with a three-hour minimum, so a weekly visit starts at £69. The £67 minimum charge applies to one-off cleans only.

Tell us the postcode and the size of the home, and we will ring back with a price for your Southwark clean.

Book a clean 020 3734 1438

Cleaning services for Southwark flats and houses