House extension drawings in Enfield

The kind of house being extended

61.2 per cent of households here live in a house or bungalow, and 52.4 per cent own their home. That is a borough of owners with gardens to work with: domestic gardens made up 21.7 per cent of all land in the national Generalised Land Use Database.

Terraced homes averaged £496,816 in the latest Land Registry month and semi-detached homes £714,519, which is the backdrop many owners weigh when deciding between adding space and moving.

Where a garden is long enough, a rear extension and a loft room can be drawn together. Combining them in one submission is often tidier than two, as long as the combined bulk is still modest beside the neighbours.

Permitted development, prior approval or a planning application

Permitted development lets a single-storey rear extension reach 3 m (attached) / 4 m (detached) beyond the original rear wall, single storey, up to 4 m high. A Lawful Development Certificate for an Enfield house puts the fact in writing for a later buyer.

The prior approval route is wider: 6 m (attached) / 8 m (detached), single storey, height max 4 m; not on article 2(3) land or an SSSI, with the neighbour consultation running up to 42 days. Enfield's record is nearly even. In its latest published year it granted 35 of these larger home extensions and refused 27, so the notice has to show the effect on neighbours convincingly.

Beyond those limits, or on land where the rights have been withdrawn, the route is a householder application supported by planning drawings for Enfield homes.

Reading the Green Belt line across a plot

A street on the edge of the built-up area is where the 37 per cent figure bites. Two neighbouring houses can face different tests if only one lies inside the boundary, so we overlay the Green Belt line on the survey before we sketch. Inside it, we compare the volume of the original house with the proposal; outside it, the usual neighbour tests apply.

Other layers are thinner on the ground but still checked. The borough holds 5 scheduled monuments, 5 registered parks and gardens and 22 heritage at risk entries. If your house is near one, the setting can be raised in the officer's report, so we prepare a short note on it to go with the drawings.

Minor applications, a wider class than extensions, were granted at 71.6 per cent in the same year, against 83.4 per cent for householder cases, which is one reason an extension is often the more straightforward route to extra space.

How Enfield decides householder cases

The council decided 934 householder applications in its latest published year, granted 83.4 per cent of them and met the eight-week target, or an agreed extension, for 92.4 per cent.

Those are totals for the whole borough and every size of job. Read them as a guide to how long the wait may be, not as a forecast for any one house.

What you receive from us

A set covers existing and proposed floor plans, elevations and sections, together with the location and block plans the council needs to validate the file. A second chartered technologist checks every sheet before submission, and if the officer asks for changes we redraw at no charge until approval.

Once planning is settled, building regulations drawings in Enfield add foundations, drainage and insulation detail. The council's own fee for a householder application is £548, paid to the council, and new extension elements must meet these energy limits: New elements in existing dwellings, limiting U-values W/(m²·K): roof 0.15, wall 0.18, floor 0.18, windows 1.4 (or WER Band B), doors 1.4.

Specific shapes and the next boroughs

Looking at one shape only? Start with rear extension drawings in Enfield or double-storey extension drawings in Enfield, or add a roof room through loft conversion drawings in Enfield. Our whole offer here is set out under architectural drawings in Enfield.

Over the border, compare the same service in Barnet, Haringey and Waltham Forest.