Prior approval drawings in Enfield

Housing stock and why Enfield suits this route

61.2% of Enfield households live in a house or bungalow, and 52.4% own their home. Those are the two groups for whom a larger home extension is possible at all: the rights belong to houses, not flats or maisonettes. A semi-detached house in the borough averaged £714,519 on the latest Land Registry figures, and a terraced one £496,816, so extra floor area at the back is often worth more than the build and fees combined.

Where an Enfield semi or terrace has a long rear garden, the larger attached-house allowance is physically achievable. Our survey starts from the original rear wall, because the allowance is measured from the house as first built, and earlier conservatory or lean-to additions are a common reason a client's depth sums are wrong.

Conservation areas, Article 4 and Green Belt in Enfield

The council publishes 24 conservation areas and 33 Article 4 direction areas, and 37% of the borough is Green Belt. Designated land such as a conservation area closes the larger home extension route altogether, and an Article 4 direction can remove the underlying permitted development right, so the first job on any Enfield address is to check each layer against the property boundary, not the postcode.

The Green Belt figure matters in a different way. Prior approval does not apply a Green Belt test, but a refused notification sends you to a householder application, where openness is weighed. If your house sits at the northern edge of the borough, we show you that fallback before you pay for drawings, using our planning drawings service as the reference scope.

What the notification drawings show

The Order lists the information a council needs: Written description (depth beyond rear wall, max height, eaves height), site plan, addresses of adjoining premises, developer contact address. We draw that, then add a scaled ground-floor plan, front and rear elevations, a section through the extension and the neighbour's nearest windows, so an officer can see the relationship without a site visit.

The site plan is the document officers open first. We prepare it to the same standard as our location and block plans, with the original rear wall, the proposed depth and the neighbouring extensions dimensioned. Our drawings are produced by chartered architectural technologists (MCIAT), checked by a second technologist before they go to the council.

The council fee is £249 and is paid to the council. Our fee is quoted as a fixed sum once the free constraints check is done, and redrawing after a council amendment request is included.

Neighbours, objections and the Enfield officer's reading

Enfield's rear gardens are long enough that depth alone rarely decides a case. What decides it is what the extension does to the nearest habitable window next door. We measure the distance from that window to the proposed flank wall, record whether the neighbour already has an extension of their own, and note any difference in ground level across the boundary, because a slope of a few hundred millimetres makes a compliant eaves height look taller from next door.

A neighbour who objects does not stop the process, but the officer must then weigh the objection against the Order's test. A clear section drawing through the shared boundary answers most objections on paper. When it does not, we can show you a shallower alternative side by side, with the trade-off in plain language, so the decision about depth is yours and made before the notification goes in.

Timing is the other thing clients ask about. The clock starts when the council holds a valid notification, so incomplete paperwork costs weeks, not days. Our second-technologist check reads the submission against the Order's list before it is sent, and we track the neighbour period and answer any officer query within five working days.

Prior approval or certificate: which fits your Enfield house

If your extension fits inside ordinary permitted development limits, a Lawful Development Certificate is the better evidence: Enfield decided 636 of them in the same year. Prior approval is for the extension that goes beyond those limits and still stays within the larger home allowance.

Nearby, the same question is answered a little differently by Barnet and Haringey, where the same Order is applied by a different council. Our Enfield area page lists every service we offer in the borough.