Planning drawings in Harrow

Green belt and heritage on the Harrow edges

Green belt covers 22 per cent of the borough. A house inside it is judged on how much it adds to the original building, and a second extension on top of an earlier one can quickly use up the allowance.

Harrow has 31 conservation areas, 295 listed entries, and 9 scheduled monuments in or across its boundary. We plot those against your site on the first call, because a heritage designation next door can matter as much as one on your own land.

A neighbour's listing or conservation area can also matter. If the house next door is protected, officers ask how the proposed extension looks from there, and we draw that view as a simple section so the answer is on the sheet.

Which planning route a Harrow house usually takes

Many Harrow homes are houses, and a rear extension or outbuilding on one can fit within permitted development. Where the limits are met, a Lawful Development Certificate in Harrow gives you written proof for a lender or a future buyer.

Where the proposal goes further, such as a side extension with a first-floor, a wrap-around or a change to the front, a householder application is the route. The council's fee for that is £548.

HMO conversions are controlled here by an Article 4 direction, so turning a family house into a shared house needs consent, whatever the size of the works.

On corner plots and detached houses the side boundary can be the tightest constraint, so the spacing to the neighbour matters. We measure that gap and draw it, rather than leave it to a site visit.

We also ask what you plan to do with the house over the next few years. A loft or a side extension that is possible later should not be blocked by today's rear extension, so we sketch the whole sequence on one site plan before the first drawing is fixed. It is a short exercise and it often changes where the new work should go.

How Harrow decides householder applications

Harrow decided 917 householder applications in its latest twelve months. It granted 81.7 per cent and decided 93.7 per cent in time.

As ever these are past, borough-wide figures. They help us plan a calendar for you and do not forecast the result for one house.

The strongest applications are those that need no clarification. We build ours around the council's validation list, with the scale, north point, ownership certificate and dimensions in place the first time.

What you receive and what it costs

A Harrow set includes existing and proposed floor plans, elevations and sections, a block plan and a location plan. Our fixed fee starts at £745 including VAT. A second MCIAT chartered technologist checks everything, and if the council wants changes we redraw at no charge until approval.

When the design is approved, building regulations drawings in Harrow add the technical detail a builder and building control need.

We begin with a free address check and a fixed quote, then survey, options and a written choice from you. Drawings normally follow within about a week of the survey, and we submit through the Planning Portal.

Nearby boroughs

The wider borough picture is at architectural drawings in Harrow, and the national rules are under planning drawings. We draw next door too, in Brent, Hillingdon and Barnet.

If you want a single design for planning and construction, the same survey and model carry through, so nothing is measured twice.