Wraparound extension drawings in Bexley

How many Bexley homes can take a wraparound

Roughly 75.3 per cent of households in Bexley live in a house or bungalow, and 68.6 per cent own their home. With that many houses, side and rear projects are a regular part of the borough's planning workload.

Domestic gardens cover 25.1 per cent of the borough's land, so the plots are generous compared with central London. Even so, a wraparound uses the strip at the side that makes a house feel open, and officers expect the garden that remains to be a proper garden, not a leftover.

Part of Bexley is Green Belt, at 17 per cent of the area. If your house sits there, the extension is also read against the proportionate-addition test, and the drawings need to show the original house outline clearly.

The national limits that apply first

Before any local test, the starting point is national. The side arm must fit this: Side extension: single storey, max 4 m high, max half the width of the original house. The rear arm must fit this: 3 m (attached) / 4 m (detached) beyond the original rear wall, single storey.

The two are then added together: Limits apply to the total enlargement (new part plus any existing enlargement it joins). We draw the original house in a separate layer, so you can see how much allowance earlier work has already used.

A permitted development wraparound can sometimes fit on a plain semi or detached house with a modest plot. Where it is not, a householder application is the route, and our planning drawings cover that.

Bexley decisions: what the numbers show

Bexley decided 877 householder applications in its latest published year, granted 94.6 per cent and decided 99.4 per cent within eight weeks or an agreed extension. Those are borough-wide figures for every kind of home improvement, so they describe the climate, not your design.

The prior approval route for larger single-storey rear extensions tells a different story. In the latest twelve months Bexley granted 7 of these and refused 8. Neighbour objections and the way the scheme meets the boundary decide most of them, and a wraparound that leans on prior approval for its rear arm carries that risk.

If you want certainty on the lawful limits before you build, a Lawful Development Certificate records them.

Heritage, fees and the party wall

Bexley publishes 23 conservation areas, and Historic England lists 114 entries in the borough. In a conservation area the side arm falls away as permitted development: On article 2(3) land (conservation areas etc.): no side extensions, no cladding, no rear extension of more than one storey under Class A.

The council's householder fee is £548. Digging near a neighbour's footing triggers a separate duty: Adjacent excavation notice at least 1 month before work: within 3 m and deeper than the neighbour's foundations, or within 6 m and cutting a 45° line from their foundations. We time the notices with the planning submission so the two do not collide.

Bexley also has Article 4 controls over houses in multiple occupation, which matters only if you plan to let rooms to several tenants after the build. Tell us at the start, because a larger kitchen and living space can change how the building is classed once more bedrooms are added upstairs.

Wraparound extension drawings in Bexley: the package

Existing and proposed plans, sections and elevations, a location plan and a block plan, from £1,195 including VAT. A second chartered technologist reads each sheet, and if the council asks for changes we redraw at no charge.

Next to a wraparound, many owners also look at rear extension drawings in Bexley or side return extension drawings in Bexley to compare. The full local picture is at architectural drawings in Bexley, and the same service next door is in Greenwich and Bromley.