The whole spectrum — rear extensions, side returns, wraparounds, double-storey, basement digs. Planning-led design with detailed technical phase, ideal for georgian in Greenwich town centre typical of Greenwich.
Harder than the London average by twelve points. Greenwich approved 70.7% of the householder applications it decided in the three years to March 2026 — 1,627 of 2,301 — against 83.0% across London, while still settling 93.8% inside eight weeks.
| Measure | Greenwich | London |
|---|---|---|
| Householder approval rate | 70.7% | 83.0% |
| Householder decisions made | 2,301 | 77,680 |
| Refused | 674 | — |
| Decided inside eight weeks | 93.8% | — |
| Larger-extension prior approvals granted | 230 | 52.9% of those determined |
| Extension applications in the Datahub | 6,386 | 60% approved |
| Householder appeals allowed after refusal | 39.9% of 571 | 40.8% of 13,067 |
Sources: decision figures from MHCLG District Planning Application Statistics (PS1 and PS2), twelve quarters to March 2026; the Datahub row from the Planning London Datahub, retrieved 15 August 2026, phrase-matched and comparable within Greenwich only; appeals from Planning Inspectorate casework decided 2016–2026. The twelve-point gap is the strongest argument for getting the drawings right before submission rather than after a refusal.
A house extension drawings package in Greenwich, where the stock is largely Georgian in Greenwich town centre; Victorian terraces in East Greenwich, is the full measured-survey-to-submission drawing set Royal Borough of Greenwich needs in order to determine an application: existing and proposed plans, elevations and sections at 1:100 and 1:50, a location and site plan, and the supporting statements the case officer asks for.
Prepared and reviewed by the architectural technologist team at Architectural Drawings London — CIAT Affiliate, professional indemnity insured.Last reviewed 2026-08-03.
The whole spectrum — rear extensions, side returns, wraparounds, double-storey, basement digs. Planning-led design with detailed technical phase, ideal for georgian in Greenwich town centre typical of Greenwich.
Housing stock in Greenwich: Georgian in Greenwich town centre; Victorian terraces in East Greenwich, Charlton; inter-war semi-detached in Eltham; new-build along the riverside.
Character: World Heritage Site status in Greenwich town centre adds heritage weight; outer borough areas (Eltham, Thamesmead) generally permissive.
Before a price is quoted we measure the existing house, photograph it, and check the Article 4 and conservation position for that specific address, which is not the same question as the borough-wide one.
At concept stage you get two or three genuinely different schemes to choose between: plan arrangement, glazing and roof form all change from one to the next.
An ordnance-based location plan, existing and proposed floor plans, elevations and sections, and a design and access statement on the schemes that call for one.
Steel beam, foundation, lintel design. Chartered engineer sign-off.
Party wall notices served wherever a boundary is engaged, and a Thames Water build-over agreement lodged whenever the new foundation runs within 3m of a public sewer.
Single planning or regs submission.
Planning + building regs + structural.
Listed, conservation, complex sites.
Move the controls for an indicative figure. It anchors your budget — it is not a quote. Every project is priced after a site survey.
Build costs are separate and quoted by your contractor. See our published fees.
Which Greenwich postcode districts we draw in, what the housing is made of in each one, and who validates an extension application there. The charges shown are 2026 statutory England fees, set by government rather than by us.
| Postcode | Area | Dominant stock | What it means for a house extension |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE2 | Abbey Wood | Georgian in Greenwich town centre; Victorian terraces in East Greenwich | Abbey Wood is split at SE2 between Greenwich and Bexley. Which authority determines your extension turns on the individual address, and both policies maps get read. |
| SE3 | Blackheath / Kidbrooke | Georgian villas, Victorian terraces | SE3 spans the Greenwich and Lewisham boundary at Blackheath and Kidbrooke, so whether Greenwich or Lewisham validates the extension comes down to which side of that line your house happens to sit on. |
| SE7 | Charlton | Victorian villas, 1930s semi-detached | Charlton fills SE7 on its own. Greenwich handles the application, and the conservation mapping brought to bear is the SE7 sheet rather than anything borough-wide. |
| SE9 | Eltham / Mottingham | 1930s semi-detached, post-war flats | Eltham and Mottingham are divided at SE9 between Greenwich and Bromley, so we check the address against both councils' policies maps before assuming which one decides it. |
| SE10 | Greenwich | Georgian terraces, listed buildings | SE10 lies entirely within Greenwich, so the council determines the extension itself, and its officers apply the borough's own conservation area mapping to every address in the district. |
| SE18 | Woolwich / Plumstead | Georgian fragments, post-war estates, new-build | Woolwich and Plumstead make up SE18, where Greenwich Council decides the extension under the Local Plan policies written for those two areas. |
| SE28 | Thamesmead | Post-war estates, new-build | An SE28 address in Thamesmead falls to Greenwich Council, which determines the extension under the Local Plan policies covering that end of the borough. |
Ridge height, wall construction and back-garden depth vary street by street across Greenwich, and all three change the size of extension an address will carry.
How designation changes a Greenwich house extension: Greenwich Council maintains 20 conservation areas, including Charlton, Eltham Park, Greenwich Town Centre (World Heritage Site). Inside any of them a Greenwich house extension cannot rely on permitted development, and the route becomes a £548 householder application determined in 8 weeks rather than a £249 prior approval in 6 weeks. Blackheath sets the tone for Greenwich casework.
Greenwich permitted development status: there is no borough-wide direction from Greenwich Council, so a house extension at a SE2 address is normally still permitted development. We certify that with a £274 Lawful Development Certificate rather than leaving a Greenwich sale to argue it later.
The building fabric around Greenwich: Georgian in Greenwich town centre; Victorian terraces in East Greenwich, Charlton; inter-war semi-detached in Eltham; new-build along the riverside. World Heritage Site status in Greenwich town centre adds heritage weight; outer borough areas (Eltham, Thamesmead) generally permissive. A house extension in Greenwich is scoped against that stock first, because it decides whether the scheme runs as permitted development, a £274 Lawful Development Certificate, or a full £548 application to Greenwich Council.
Sources for this Greenwich house extension page: borough policies maps and conservation-area registers (2025–26), Royal Mail postcode district boundaries, the Town and Country Planning (Fees for Applications) (England) Regulations, the Town and Country Planning (General Permitted Development) (England) Order 2015 as amended, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Greenwich householders who appealed a refusal won 251 times out of 632 decided cases, lost 368, and saw 13 split. At 39.7% allowed the borough sits level with London's 39.0%, which is worth holding against its first-instance record: refusals are commoner here, but they are not more often wrong. Mind what the population is. Extensions and alterations to a single home are householder cases, so these 632 are the refused minority who chose to fight — never the far larger number that were simply approved.
Half of those appeals ran past 77 days before a decision came back, and that time sits on top of whatever the council has already spent — an argument for getting the application right first rather than banking on the Inspectorate. A conservation area featured in 8.4% of them, 53 cases, and the setting of a listed building in 10.6%. Every one of the 632, 100.0%, went through written representations rather than a hearing, which makes the drawings and the statement the entire evidence base.
Based on 632 householder appeal decisions in Greenwich. Taken from Planning Inspectorate casework statistics and reproduced under OGL v3.0.
Short answers to what Greenwich homeowners actually ask us about extension drawings, with the hedging left out.
Start a free quote →Plenty do qualify: single-storey rear to 3m or 4m, side extensions up to half the width of the house, under the national rules. Flats and listed buildings never qualify, and nor does anything inside a conservation area, where full planning permission is the only route open. We settle which of the two applies at the site survey, before you have committed money to either.
Permitted development allows 3m at the back of an attached house and 4m on a detached one, and Prior Approval under Class AA can take that to 6m or 8m. In this borough the second route deserves care: of 435 larger householder prior approvals the council determined, 205 came back refused — 47.1%, where the 33 boroughs pooled refuse 24.9% (MHCLG PS1/PS2, retrieved 1 September 2026). Flats, listed buildings and Article 4 streets have no permitted development rights to begin from.
An extension here carries two separate cost lines. Ours is the architectural package — planning drawings, building regulations and structural calculations quoted as a single fixed figure. The other is construction, priced by contractors per square metre and moving with access, ground conditions and specification. A side return generally lands lower per m² than a two-storey rear, because the roof and the foundations are doing less work. Our fees are published rather than negotiated.
Greenwich publishes no basement policy of its own, so basement conversions are judged against the national framework and on structure, drainage and flood zone. That last one is no formality here: 20.4% of the borough's land lies in Flood Zone 3 and 23.0% in Zone 2 (Environment Agency flood map, retrieved 1 September 2026), and a dig anywhere inside either zone brings a Flood Risk Assessment into the submission list. A Thames Water build-over agreement applies within 3m of a public sewer.
Most Victorian terraces in Greenwich (particularly in Greenwich Town Centre (World Heritage Site)) benefit from both — a side return extension infills the narrow side passage to create a wider kitchen, a rear extension projects back into the garden. A wraparound combines the two. We recommend the best option at the free site visit.
Greenwich's georgian in Greenwich town centre terraced and semi-detached stock typically suits rear single-storey extensions (kitchen-diners), side-return infill extensions, or double-storey rear. Wraparound extensions combine both directions for maximum gain. We recommend the most viable option at the free site visit.
We cover all Greenwich postcodes — SE3, SE7, SE9, SE10, SE18, SE28 — with local surveyors. Survey appointments within 3 working days.
The council grants 70.7% of the householder applications it decides — 1,627 of 2,301, with 674 refused — where the 33 boroughs pooled grant 83.0% (MHCLG PS1/PS2, retrieved 1 September 2026). That gap is the most useful single fact about extending a house here, and it does not come from hostility to extensions. Policy asks for matching or complementary materials, protected neighbour amenity and Part L compliance, and the applications that skip one of the three are the ones that come back refused. Where the planning history is complicated we add a pre-application advice summary.
If your property sits on a boundary, here are the neighbouring options.
Planning drawings, building regulations packages, structural calculations, party wall notices and measured surveys across Greenwich, from one CIAT-affiliated team rather than four separate appointments.
A construction-ready drawing package compliant with every Approved Document — Part A structure, Part B fire, Part L thermal, Part M accessib...
Every loft type across every Greenwich roof line — dormer, mansard, hip-to-gable, L-shape, Velux. LDC or full planning route, building regul...
Greenwich's most space-efficient loft solution when PD-route dormers are blocked. Our team designs mansards that get approved in G...
Turn your unused Greenwich garage into a bedroom, home office or open-plan kitchen-diner. Planning route assessment, full building regulatio...
Full architectural technology service for basement digs and cellar conversions in Greenwich — structural underpinning design, waterproofing ...
Chartered structural engineer calculations for every residential intervention in Greenwich — steel beams, lintels, pad foundations, wall rem...
Measured surveys across Greenwich — floor plans, elevations and sections to ±3mm accuracy. Leica Disto laser + BLK360 point-cloud scanning, ...
End-to-end Party Wall Act 1996 service for Greenwich — Section 1, 3 and 6 notices, schedule of condition surveys, party wall award coordinat...
London's most popular loft type — the full-width rear dormer. Planning or Permitted Development route assessed for your Greenwich property, ...
Leave your number and an Architectural technologist will call you back within 30 minutes during working hours.
No obligation. No sales pressure. Just expert advice about house extension drawings in Greenwich.
Free quote in 60 seconds. No hourly billing. CIAT Affiliate.
Get my free quote →
