Planning appeals in Westminster

Heritage is the heavy factor in this borough

Westminster has 56 conservation areas, 4,015 list entries and 1 World Heritage Site within its boundary. Of those entries, 205 are Grade I and 373 are Grade II*. The council also publishes 10 Article 4 directions, which remove permitted development rights in defined areas.

An inspector deciding a Westminster appeal must give great weight to the conservation of heritage assets, so the appeal statement has to deal with significance before it deals with design. We describe what is significant about the building and the street, show where the proposal touches it, and use sections and photographs to show what changes and what does not. A rear closet wing that cannot be seen from any public place is a different case from a front roof alteration, and the drawings should make that obvious at a glance.

Check the heritage position of your own address on the council's planning search before you decide: https://idoxpa.westminster.gov.uk/online-applications/.

Flats, mews and roofs: the common appeal subjects

Only 10.2 per cent of Westminster households live in a house, and 27.4 per cent own their home. Most people applying here are leaseholders in flats, or own a mews house or a terrace in a conservation area, so many appeals are about roof extensions, rear infill, replacement windows or the loss of a terrace or lightwell.

Flat owners face an extra problem. Permitted development rights are far narrower for flats, so a refusal often means there is no fallback route. For a building whose roof or rear elevation has been altered before, we check the planning history for similar approvals on the same terrace, because an inspector gives real weight to what the council has already accepted next door. Our planning drawings service describes how those comparison sheets are prepared.

Appeal, reapply or use another route

A householder appeal decided on written representations took a median of 11.6 weeks nationally in the latest Planning Inspectorate figures, and the twelve-month median for written representations was 18 weeks. Those are national figures, not a forecast for a Westminster case. Where the refusal is narrow, such as one elevation or one window, a revised application can be quicker.

Sometimes the work never needed permission at all. Westminster dealt with 138 lawful development certificate applications in the latest national return, and for a legitimate case a Lawful Development Certificate gives certainty without an appeal. If the work has been built already, read about retrospective planning applications before you contact the council.

What we prepare for a Westminster appeal

Written representations are the usual route. We prepare the statement, answering each reason for refusal in turn, with the heritage argument at the front. We prepare the plans, sections and elevations the inspector will use, drawn from one model so every sheet agrees, plus a three-dimensional view where the argument concerns height or outlook.

A second member of the team, who did not draw the set, checks it against the refusal notice before it is submitted. We do not promise a result, because the decision belongs to an independent inspector. The quote is fixed once the free constraints check is done, and you can see the wider service on our planning appeals page or the full range on architectural drawings in Westminster.