Retrospective planning application in Havering

Green Belt in Havering and what it means for built work

About 53 per cent of Havering is covered by Green Belt, which is more than half the borough. Your address decides whether you are inside it, so we check the boundary first.

In the Green Belt the usual test is whether a building is a disproportionate addition to the original house, and whether it harms openness. An extension that looked modest at the planning-free stage may fail that test once measured against the house as it stood on the relevant date.

We therefore draw the original footprint as well as the present one, with the percentage increase written on the sheet. Where a scheme goes beyond what policy accepts we say so honestly and discuss reducing the scheme rather than filing a weak application.

Havering figures that matter to a retrospective case

The council decided 985 householder applications in its latest year. It decided 97.8 per cent of them in time, which helps you plan once the application is validated.

Residents also asked the council for 578 lawful development certificates, and 76.7 per cent of households live in a house or bungalow. For the larger prior approvals, Havering granted 21 and refused 27, so a deep rear extension built on the assumption of approval deserves a second look. A lawful development certificate in Havering may suit work that was actually within the rules.

Fee, deadlines and levy

The householder fee is £548 and the statutory decision period is 8 weeks. If the answer is a refusal, the appeal window for a householder case is 12 weeks, and our planning appeals support in Havering takes over from there.

Havering is a levy borough with two zones: £151.52/m² (Zone A, North of A1306); £66.67/m² (Zone B, South of A1306). Mayoral charging sits in band 3, at £25 per square metre before indexation. Whether a given extension is liable depends on its floor area and on how the regulations treat unauthorised work, so we set out the likely position in the quote.

Time also matters: the enforcement period for most building works is 10 years from substantial completion.

Outbuildings, garages and the original house date

Retrospective cases in Havering are not only extensions. Garden rooms, converted garages and large sheds can need permission too, even though owners often assume anything detached is exempt. In practice height, distance to the boundary and the size of the garden covered all count, and a building that breaks any one of them needs permission.

The reference point for Green Belt and size tests is the house as it stood on a fixed date, so we trace its history using old plans, aerial photographs and the council register. Where earlier extensions were added by a previous owner, they count towards the total, and we show the running figure on the drawing.

Keep receipts for the build, too. A paper trail showing who did the work, and when, helps if the council asks whether the building was ever lawful or whether a certificate could have covered it.

What you get from us

Expect a measured survey, existing and proposed drawings, a Green Belt comparison where relevant, and a plain-English summary of the risks. We also read the planning drawings in Havering standard against your set, so nothing is missing at validation.

You pay a fixed fee agreed after the free constraints check. See architectural drawings in Havering for the borough overview, or retrospective planning applications for the national picture. Next door we also work in Barking and Dagenham and Redbridge.