Flat conversion drawings in Richmond upon Thames

Heritage that shapes the elevations

Richmond is among the most protected boroughs in London. The council publishes 85 conservation areas, Historic England lists 819 buildings here, and 1 World Heritage Site lies inside the boundary. A further 17 entries sit on the Heritage at Risk Register.

A flat conversion adds doors, bins, meter boxes and often a second letterbox to a front elevation that the street has seen unchanged for a century. In a conservation area that detail is read as harm or as care, so we draw the shared entrance, the bin store and the cycle storage as part of the elevation rather than leaving them to the builder.

Green Belt covers about 2 per cent of the borough, so it rarely affects a conversion of an existing house, but we still confirm it with the constraints check.

How Richmond treats small housing schemes

A conversion into two or three flats is a minor application, not a householder one. Richmond decided 324 minor applications in the latest year of published figures and granted 75.3 per cent, with 94.8 per cent decided in time. Its householder grant rate is higher, at 83.3 per cent.

That difference is the cost of asking for a new home rather than a bigger kitchen. We use it to decide how much evidence the drawings should carry: stacked layouts, an area for every flat measured against the space standard, and the garden division shown with dimensions.

What the property market does to the sums

Conversion only makes sense where the parts are worth more than the whole. The average Richmond terraced house sold for about £915,886 and the average flat for £487,215, against £1,192,249 for a semi-detached house. Prices moved by -0.8 per cent over twelve months, so the market is steady rather than rising.

59.8 per cent of the borough's households live in a house or bungalow, and 62.4 per cent own their home. Most of the stock that could be converted is therefore in owner hands, which keeps leasehold complications low at the start. Check the title before you commit.

Levies, fees and what we draw

New dwellings attract the Mayor's levy. Richmond sits in charging band 1, the highest rate band, which for permissions granted this year works out at £96.97 per square metre. The borough's own levy is set out as £418.41/m² (Residential Higher Band); £317.99/m² (Residential Lower Band). The exemption for small extensions does not help here, because a new dwelling is being created.

The council's planning fee is £610 for each dwelling formed. Add sound insulation under Approved Document E, which asks for Separating walls 43 dB DnT,w+Ctr (min); floors and stairs 43 dB airborne (min), 64 dB L'nT,w impact (max) for dwellings formed by material change of use.

Once the layout is chosen we carry it through to building regulations drawings in Richmond upon Thames, and the application itself is built on our planning drawings in Richmond upon Thames. If you would rather test permitted routes first, see lawful development certificates in Richmond upon Thames.

Next steps and neighbouring boroughs

Send the address and the number of flats you want. We run the constraints check free, quote a fixed fee, survey the house and put layouts in front of you in 3D. A second chartered technologist checks every sheet, and we redraw at no charge until approval if officers ask for changes, without promising the outcome.

The same drawings are available nearby in Hounslow, Kingston upon Thames and Wandsworth. The borough overview is at architectural drawings in Richmond upon Thames.