Lawful Development Certificate in Southwark

Flats, conversions and who can use an LDC here

Only 21.8 per cent of Southwark's households live in a house or bungalow. The rest live in flats and maisonettes, and householder permitted development does not apply to a flat or a building containing flats.

That shapes who we can help. A freehold house, including a terrace that has never been converted, can use the certificate route. A leaseholder in a converted building usually cannot, and the route is a planning application plus the freeholder's consent.

Conversion history matters too. A house later split into flats may have lost its Part 1 rights at the point of conversion, so we read the planning register for the original consent before we advise on any route.

How busy Southwark's certificate desk is

The government's planning returns for the latest year record 200 lawful development certificate applications in Southwark. We design out the usual avoidable errors before submission: depth measured from the wrong wall, volume counted without earlier additions, or drawings with no stated scale.

The statutory period is 8 weeks. Householder planning decisions here are quick on paper, with 95.3 per cent decided within eight weeks or an agreed extension, but those figures describe planning applications and not certificates. Treat any date as an estimate.

The limits we draw to

A single-storey rear extension may reach 3 m (attached) / 4 m (detached) beyond the original rear wall, single storey and be no higher than 4 metres. For a loft, the Class B allowance is 40 m³ (terrace house) / 50 m³ (any other house) additional roof volume, and a terraced house takes the lower figure.

We measure from the original house, not from the house as it is now. A previous extension therefore uses up part of the allowance before you start, and we show the running total on a single sheet.

Each dimension is surveyed once and carried onto every sheet, so plan, section and elevation agree. A second chartered technologist then proofreads the set against the Order.

Reading the Article 4 register before you rely on it

Southwark's 480 directions are published as 480 mapped areas, and the boundaries do not follow tidy lines. A house at the end of a terrace can sit inside a direction while its neighbour sits outside. The register entry also states the date and the right withdrawn, which tells us whether your project is affected at all.

A direction that removes only front-elevation rights leaves a rear extension untouched, so a direction on the street is not always a bar. We read each entry rather than treat the whole street as closed, and we tell you which rights remain.

There is a second route for deeper rear extensions. Southwark has recorded 7 larger home extension prior approvals granted and 2 refused in the latest return. If your design goes beyond the certificate limits, our prior approval drawings in Southwark cover that notification.

Fee, drawings and next steps

The council fee for a proposed-use certificate is set nationally: Half the normal planning fee (householder: £274). You pay that to Southwark. Our fixed fee starts at £645 including VAT.

If the officer asks for changes, we redraw at no charge until approval. A certificate answers the planning question only, so building regulations drawings in Southwark follow once the design is settled.

Planning a project near the border? The same rules are explained for Lambeth, Lewisham and Tower Hamlets, and the full picture for the borough sits on our architectural drawings in Southwark page.