Building regulations drawings in Tower Hamlets

A borough of flats

Only 12 per cent of Tower Hamlets households live in a house or bungalow, and just 23.1 per cent own their home. That leaves a borough of tenants and leaseholders, where nearly every alteration needs a freeholder's or landlord's agreement alongside the council's.

A freeholder or managing agent will usually ask for the technical drawings before consent, particularly for anything that touches the structure, the fire compartments or the services. We prepare a clean set that can go straight to them.

For a house, the work is often a loft, a rear addition or a conversion of a terrace, and the same discipline applies. Shared party walls and shared drains are where building control focuses, so we show each junction in detail.

Heritage in Tower Hamlets: conservation areas, listings and World Heritage Sites

The council publishes 59 conservation areas and 64 Article 4 directions. Historic England lists 916 entries and 10 scheduled monuments, and the borough has 2 World Heritage Sites inside its boundary.

None of this alters the Building Regulations, which apply to every building. It changes how you can meet them. In a conservation area or on a listed building, upgrading windows, adding insulation or altering a roof can need planning or listed building consent as well, and the consent decides what the technical set is allowed to show.

The borough also holds 72 tree preservation orders. We check the address against all of these before pricing.

What the council's householder record shows

Tower Hamlets decided 191 householder applications in its latest published year, a small number beside its planning decisions across all types, which came to 972. It granted 92.7 per cent of householder applications and decided 95.8 per cent on time.

The small householder total follows from the housing: flats are not covered by householder permitted development, and most schemes here are not householder schemes at all. We therefore ask first whether your home is a house or a flat, since that decides the route and the paperwork.

Whichever route applies, the full plans rule is the same: Building control body must decide a full plans application within 5 weeks, or longer if agreed in writing.

Competence, fire and the dutyholder rules

The dutyholder rules set a competence duty: Anyone carrying out design or building work must have the skills, knowledge, experience and behaviours (or organisational capability) to do it. Those apply to designers and builders alike, and our handover note records who is responsible for what.

Compliance does not end at approval. Building control must be told when work starts and finishes. The commencement rule reads: Notify commencement within 5 days after work is regarded as commenced. A missed notice can delay the completion certificate, which a lender or a buyer will ask for later.

What the Tower Hamlets set includes

Sound and fire separation need particular care in flats. We specify the floor and wall build-ups by name, so that a contractor cannot swap them for something thinner, and so building control can check the sheet against what is delivered.

A typical set holds floor plans, sections, build-ups for walls, floors and roofs, a drainage layout, fire and sound notes and a materials specification. A second chartered technologist checks every sheet and revisions after a building control query are included in the fee. We ask for the planning decision or certificate and any survey you hold.

Earlier in the job, see planning drawings in Tower Hamlets. The engineer's figures come through structural calculations in Tower Hamlets, and services layouts through M&E drawings in Tower Hamlets.

Nearby boroughs and the wider Tower Hamlets service

For the whole borough, see architectural drawings in Tower Hamlets. Close by, building regulations drawings in Newham, in Southwark and in Lewisham follow each council's own guidance.