Planning drawings in Kensington and Chelsea

Article 4 directions and why they matter here

With 84 Article 4 directions published, some works that are automatic elsewhere need permission. We read the direction for your street rather than assuming what it covers, because the wording differs.

The practical effect is that more of your project becomes a planning application, and the drawings carry the weight. We show the existing and proposed front elevations to the same scale, label the materials, and keep the heritage notes beside the drawing they refer to.

Listed homes and protected trees

The borough contains 1,350 listed entries, including 18 at Grade I and 116 at Grade II*. A listed house needs listed building consent for most changes, and that application is handled on our sister site, propertyarchitecture.com.

The council also records 4,560 tree preservation orders. Garden square trees and street trees can restrict where you dig or build, so we plot them on the survey and check root protection areas before the design is fixed.

A borough of flats

Only 17 per cent of the borough's 66,884 households live in a house, and householder permitted development does not apply to flats or buildings containing flats. Most of our work here is therefore a full planning application, often with a freeholder's consent running alongside.

Average prices make a drawing set a small share of project cost. A detached house here averages £4,525,386, and the average over all property types is £1,232,640. That is a reason to get the drawings right, not a reason to skip the checks.

How the borough decides householder cases

The council decided 664 householder applications in its latest year. It granted 93.7 per cent and decided 91.9 per cent inside the statutory period or an agreed extension.

The statutory period for a non-major application is 8 weeks, and neighbours are consulted for at least 21 days. None of this is a promise about a particular decision.

The householder fee is £548, paid to the council.

Neighbours, light and the cost of a basement or a loft

Extensions here sit close to neighbours. The statutory consultation lasts at least 21 days, and the neighbours on either side are the people most likely to respond. Our drawings show their windows, their rear additions and the shared boundary walls, so that a daylight or outlook concern can be answered from the sheet.

Terraced houses average £2,429,086 and semi-detached houses £3,051,816, and the average price has moved by -14.1 per cent in the last twelve months. A scheme here usually involves more than the planning application: a structural engineer, a party wall process and a contractor with experience of the borough.

We plan for that from the first call. The planning drawings are the base for the other disciplines, so we keep the layers tidy and the dimensions consistent. If your scheme also needs technical drawings later, our building regulations drawings in Kensington and Chelsea service builds on the same survey.

The mayoral Community Infrastructure Levy is £80 per square metre of new floorspace, and the borough sets its own zoned rates. We check your address and floor area against the charging schedule when we quote a larger scheme, and we write the result into the fee proposal. Ask for it early if the project is close to the threshold, because a few square metres can change the answer.

Daylight is the issue most likely to cause friction between neighbours. For a deep rear or side addition, a separate assessment may be needed, and our daylight and sunlight reports in Kensington and Chelsea page explains what it contains and when the council asks for one.

Next steps and neighbouring boroughs

If your scheme is smaller than it first sounds, a Lawful Development Certificate in Kensington and Chelsea may be enough. For the wider picture, see architectural drawings in Kensington and Chelsea.

We also draw in Westminster, Hammersmith and Fulham and Brent. If the council asks for changes we redraw at no charge until approval.