Measured Building Surveys · SE13 Lewisham
Lewisham controls the Corbett Estate and Ladywell conservation areas; SE13 is a strong, well-priced family-extension market.
Our page on measured building surveys in Lewisham describes how the same work runs at addresses across the rest of the authority.
The survey fixes what is actually there: every wall, opening, level and boundary, measured rather than assumed, as the base for the design and planning drawings. On the older terraces through Lewisham, Hither Green, Ladywell and the Blackheath fringe nothing is truly square, and an error carried forward from an inaccurate base drawing is expensive to discover at validation.
Laser distance measurement and point-cloud scanning, output in AutoCAD and Revit, carried out under an MCIAT chartered technologist.
Across Lewisham, Hither Green, Ladywell, Blackheath fringe in SE13, the dominant property is victorian and edwardian terraces and bay-fronted houses around lewisham and hither green, with post-war estates and new-build near the centre. That stock shapes what measured building survey looks like here: the right approach for a period terrace differs from a mansion-block flat or a new-build, and Lewisham Council judges each on design quality and neighbour impact. We survey the specific Lewisham property, confirm the planning route — Permitted Development, a Lawful Development Certificate, or full planning — and draw a council-ready set tailored to the SE13 streetscape.
Housing stock in SE13: Victorian and Edwardian terraces, a great many of them bay-fronted, around Lewisham and Hither Green, with post-war estates and recent flats concentrated near the centre.
Within the district: Lewisham, Hither Green, Ladywell, Blackheath fringe.
Streets we know in SE13: the Corbett Estate roads in Hither Green, the Ladywell streets and Manor Lane. Each road has its own building line, boundary treatment and precedent that Lewisham Council weighs when assessing a measured building survey scheme.
Conservation areas: the Corbett Estate at Hither Green, Ladywell, and Lewisham Park. Inside them permitted development falls away and most external work turns into a full application with a Heritage Statement attached.
Getting around SE13: Lewisham station carries both rail and the DLR, with Hither Green and Ladywell running into London Bridge and Charing Cross.
Regeneration: the district sits alongside the Lewisham town centre programme, which is rewriting expectations on design and density in the centre itself far more than on the residential streets around it.
Property values: the median SE13 sale in 2025 was £445,000, across 521 transactions, while the borough-wide median stood at £470,000 on 3,101 sales. Those come from HM Land Registry's Price Paid records, taken on 1 September 2026, and they show Lewisham's median unmoved since 2024. That is the honest denominator for a build budget — the extra room has to be worth building against a figure of that order, not against a central London one.
Borough character: planning here is more permissive than in the central boroughs, and the record supports the reputation. Lewisham granted 1,757 of 2,037 householder decisions in the three years ending March 2026 — 86.3%, where the 33 boroughs pooled reach 83.0% (MHCLG planning statistics, retrieved 1 September 2026). Rear dormers and side-return extensions are routine work here rather than a fight.
The site work is done by a chartered technologist with a Leica Disto and a BLK360. Most terraces in this district take about an hour and a half.
Drafting is at 1:50 or 1:100, tolerance ±3mm, in whichever of AutoCAD and Revit suits the onward job. Each room, opening, fitting and run of visible service is annotated on the sheet itself.
Elevations on all four faces plus sections cut through the building: required for a planning submission, useful in a party wall award, essential to the engineer.
Where a building is old, listed or awkwardly shaped, the BLK360 records it as a point cloud instead, which takes the guesswork out of anything that was never built square.
Export formats are DWG for CAD, RVT for Revit, IFC for anyone on a different platform, and PDF for everybody else.
You also get an accuracy statement written to RICS conventions — ±3mm between points, ±5mm absolute — which is enough for a council, an insurer or a party wall surveyor to rely on.
Single planning or building-regs submission.
Planning + building regs + structural.
Listed, conservation or complex sites.
Yes. The Corbett Estate's Edwardian bay-fronted terraces take side-return extensions, rear additions and loft conversions well, but the estate is a conservation area, so materials and form both get assessed and the route is normally a full application. We detail to match what is already on the street, then submit it to Lewisham.
Outside the designated areas, usually — a rear dormer, or an L-shape over the back addition, kept inside the volume allowance and confirmed by a Lawful Development Certificate. Inside the Corbett Estate or the Ladywell conservation area, roof changes need full planning instead. Which of the two applies depends on the road, and we check it before quoting.
Most of our work in this district is family housing: side-returns, rear additions and dormers on the Victorian and Edwardian terraces around Hither Green and Ladywell, done as households outgrow the plan they bought. At local price levels the arithmetic works, provided the scheme is consented properly and signed off at the end.
The centre is being rebuilt with new homes and a reworked public realm, which supports values across the district — but it is a town centre programme and it changes very little for a house on a residential street. There the binding controls are the permitted development limits and whichever conservation area boundary runs nearby, both of which we check against your address.
Weighed against a median local sale of £445,000, a professional drawing fee is a modest proportion of what a good scheme puts on a house. The council's statutory application charge is separate, at £548 for householder work or £610 for a full application. Our drawings carry one fixed price, and the initial site survey costs nothing at any SE13 address.
Across Lewisham, Hither Green, Ladywell and the Blackheath fringe, an SE13 project takes about three to four weeks to reach submission. The survey occupies the first week, drawings and revisions the next two. After that comes validation and the council's eight-week householder determination. We hold the file through the officer's questions.
SE13 is 98.1% Lewisham measured by property sales, so Lewisham Council determines it, with a small overlap into Greenwich on the eastern side that we confirm from the address. No borough-wide Article 4 direction is in force. Designations do apply — the Corbett Estate at Hither Green, Ladywell, Lewisham Park — and inside those, full planning and a Heritage Statement are needed.
Almost always. Once the survey turns into structural work — cutting openings, dropping in beams, forming a loft floor, digging foundations — Building Regulations approval is required. Part A deals with the structure, Part B with getting out in a fire, Part L with the thermal envelope. Lewisham's building control team can take the submission, or a private approved inspector can. Because so much of the district is terraced or semi-detached, a party wall notice usually goes out before the steelwork does. We coordinate both inside the Complete package.
Usually. On a district median a little under the borough's £470,000, a well-drawn extension or loft adds floor area that recovers its cost, and the local market has been flat rather than falling. What does not recover its cost is work built without consent or without a completion certificate: that surfaces at conveyancing and gets priced against you.
If your site sits close to the edge of the borough, it is worth checking the authority next door. Browse everything we do in SE3, SE4, SE6, SE12, SE23 and SE26.
Pick a slot that suits you. No obligation and no sales pressure, just straight answers on your planning route.
Which parts of SE13 we survey, what each is built from, and where an application originating there gets validated. The pound figures below are 2026 statutory England planning fees; no survey, design or construction cost appears among them.
| Postcode | Area | Dominant stock | What it means for a measured building survey |
|---|---|---|---|
| SE13 | Lewisham / Hither Green | Victorian terraces, post-war flats | An SE13 address in Lewisham or Hither Green falls to the borough, judged against whichever Local Plan policy covers that particular place. |
| SE13 | Lewisham | Victorian terraces, post-war flats | Lewisham itself sits within SE13. Applications from the centre go to the borough's own officers, who read them against the town centre policies. |
| SE13 | Hither Green | Edwardian terraces, 1930s semi-detached | Hither Green falls inside SE13, and work there is validated and determined by Lewisham, with the Corbett Estate designation covering a large part of it. |
| SE4 | Brockley | Victorian and Edwardian terraces | Adjoining district to SE13. A survey is a record rather than an application, so nothing about it changes at the Lewisham boundary. |
| SE6 | Catford / Bellingham | 1930s semi-detached, post-war flats | Adjoining district to SE13. A survey is a record rather than an application, so nothing about it changes at the Lewisham boundary. |
| SE8 | Deptford | Georgian terraces, post-war estates, new-build | Adjoining district to SE13. A survey is a record rather than an application, so nothing about it changes at the Lewisham boundary. |
| SE12 | Lee / Grove Park | mixed stock | Adjoining district to SE13. A survey is a record rather than an application, so nothing about it changes at the Lewisham boundary. |
Between one road here and the next, pitch, wall build-up and plot depth all move, and together they decide how much a survey has to record before anything can be designed at all.
Conservation areas covering SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green): Lewisham Council runs 30, and Forest Hill, Hither Green, Lee Green are the ones SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) owners meet most. A measured building survey inside a SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) conservation area loses permitted development, so the SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) submission is a householder application at £548 decided in 8 weeks — not a £249 prior approval decided in 6 weeks. In Deptford High Street a measured building survey is judged on the street elevation first.
Article 4 and your SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) measured building survey: Lewisham Council has made no borough-wide direction, so permitted development for a measured building survey in SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) generally survives outside SE13 (Lewisham / Hither Green) conservation areas and listed curtilages. A Lawful Development Certificate at £274 is how a SE13 owner records that a measured building survey was lawful.
The fabric around Lewisham and Hither Green: Victorian and Edwardian terraces through Brockley, Honor Oak and Forest Hill; 1930s semi-detached in Catford and Hither Green; mixed post-war stock towards Deptford. More than a quarter of the borough's homes, 27.7%, went up before 1900 (VOA CTSOP4.1 at 31 March 2025). A survey is scoped against that fabric first, because the fabric is what decides whether a scheme runs as permitted development, as a £274 Lawful Development Certificate, or as a £548 application to the council.
Sources for this SE13 measured building survey 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.
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