Lawful Development Certificate in Bromley

Green Belt, big gardens and the coverage sum

About 51 per cent of the borough is mapped as Green Belt, and domestic gardens make up 23.4 per cent of its land. Large plots are common here, and that is where the coverage rule bites: Buildings (other than the original house) may not cover more than 50% of the curtilage.

Green Belt itself does not remove the householder rights. What it changes is the plan B. A scheme that overshoots a limit by a small margin has to go in as a planning application, and in the Green Belt an officer weighs the size of the addition against the original house. A garden room, a garage conversion and a rear extension can each look small and still add up past the line, so we total them on one block plan.

On a generous plot the rear limit usually stops being the pinch point. The two-storey test often is: Over one storey: max 3 m beyond the original rear wall and not within 7 m of the rear boundary.

What Bromley's figures say about timing

Bromley recorded 512 lawful development certificate applications in its latest return to government. The planning team decided 1,609 householder applications in the latest year, granted 78.6 per cent of them, and decided 89.1 per cent on time, counting agreed extensions.

Those figures describe the council, not your file. We use them to set expectations: a complete, well-measured sheet is decided inside the Order's period more often than one that needs a letter back. The Planning Inspectorate allowed 37.6 per cent of the 502 Bromley householder appeals it decided over the last five years, so a poor first submission is not something to rely on an appeal to repair.

Drawing a house that has already been altered

Every limit counts from the original house, meaning the building as first built, or as it stood when modern planning control began. Bromley has a large stock of houses, 68.6 per cent of households, and many have a previous owner's conservatory, garage or loft behind them. Each earlier addition uses up part of the allowance.

We measure the house on site, trace earlier work through the council's online planning register and historic mapping, and draw three outlines on one scale: original, existing and proposed. The case officer then checks each allowance against evidence instead of asking for it. For the loft, the volume allowance is 40 m³ (terrace house) / 50 m³ (any other house) additional roof volume, and our sheet shows the working.

A second chartered architectural technologist, who did not draw the set, proofreads it against the Order before it goes to the council. If the officer asks for an amendment, we make it without a further fee.

Fee, next steps and nearby boroughs

The council's own fee is separate and is taken at submission: Half the normal planning fee (householder: £274). Your quote shows both amounts.

If the sums do not work, prior approval drawings in Bromley suit a deeper single-storey rear extension, and planning appeals in Bromley apply when an application is refused. The wider picture is on our architectural drawings in Bromley page.

For neighbouring boroughs with their own direction maps, see Lawful Development Certificates in Bexley or in Lewisham, and the national guide on our Lawful Development Certificate page.