Hip-to-gable loft conversion drawings in Barking and Dagenham

Article 4 directions and what they remove

The borough holds 3 Article 4 directions, mapped as 3 areas. A direction can withdraw the permitted right to alter a roof, and where one covers your house a Lawful Development Certificate is no longer enough: you need planning permission instead.

There are also 4 conservation areas and 49 listed buildings in the borough, and in a conservation area the national rule reads: Class B roof enlargements are not permitted development on article 2(3) land.

We check all three layers on the address before we advise a route, and the answer goes into writing in the next-steps pack so you can see why a certificate or an application is the right choice.

What the council's decisions look like

In the latest year the council decided 388 householder applications and granted 66.5 per cent. The share is lower than for many of the boroughs we draw in, which tells us to prepare these applications with care. Timing is the opposite story: 100 per cent were decided inside eight weeks or an agreed extension.

A householder grant rate is not a prediction for one house, since the average includes every type of scheme. For a hip-to-gable the more useful evidence is what happened to gable conversions on estate streets like yours. We look those up in the council's register and design to what was accepted.

Fast decisions help a loft programme, but they also mean there is little time to fix a weak drawing, so the application has to be complete when it goes in.

The conditions we measure before drawing

Two more national conditions often decide a hip-to-gable scheme. The enlargement must stay within the house's walls: No part of the enlargement may extend beyond the outside face of any external wall of the original house (except where joining a rear or side extension roof). It also may not alter the front slope: No enlargement beyond the plane of a roof slope that forms the principal elevation and fronts a highway. On a Becontree corner house the second condition can rule out a gable on the street side.

Inside, the stair is the pinch point. Where full headroom cannot be reached the rule is: Loft conversions where 2.0 m cannot be achieved: 1.9 m at the centre of the stair, 1.8 m at the side (half width). We test it on a section before the layout is agreed.

A loft becomes a new storey for fire purposes: New storey above 4.5 m by loft conversion: protect the full escape route with fire-resisting doors (min E 20) and partitions (min REI 30). These details go into the technical drawings.

Fees and levy

We quote a fixed fee after a free constraints check, VAT included, and redraw free if the council asks for changes. Hip-to-gable work has no list price here because the roof, the estate rules and the route all vary.

The Mayoral levy for the borough is in band 3, at £30.3 per square metre this year. The borough's own levy is zoned: £109.80/m² (Zone 1: Barking Town Centre, Leftley and Faircross); £39.22/m² (Zone 2: Barking Riverside); £15.69/m² (Zone 3: rest of borough). Schedule rates (2015): £70 / £25 / £10. The next-steps pack says whether a charge reaches your loft.

Drawings are normally ready about a week after the survey, and a second chartered technologist checks each sheet before issue. On an estate street we also include a short note on the neighbouring roofs, so the officer sees the gable in its setting.

Other options and neighbouring boroughs

A rear dormer can accompany the gable: see dormer loft conversion drawings in Barking and Dagenham, or loft conversion drawings in Barking and Dagenham for the full range. The borough overview is architectural drawings in Barking and Dagenham.

The same service covers Redbridge, Havering and Newham. The general guide is hip-to-gable loft conversion drawings.