Bexley building regulations drawings for DA5 homes
Bexley building regulations approval is separate from planning permission, and it checks how your project is built rather than how it looks. For a full plans application, the authority must tell you its outcome within five weeks of receipt, or a longer period agreed in writing. Our drawings for it start from £745.
Fixed fee from £545 drawings + £200 survey (£745 total) · all prices
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Two applications, two sets of drawings
A DA5 extension or loft conversion often needs both approvals, and they are judged on different grounds. Planning considers the look of the building and its effect on neighbours. Building regulations look at structure, fire safety, insulation, drainage and ventilation.
Our Bexley planning permission page covers the first, and our Bexley planning drawings page covers the drawings for it. This page is about the second set, which adds the construction detail a building control surveyor needs.
The five-week full plans period
Under regulation 14A(6) of the Building Regulations 2010, the authority must notify the outcome of a full plans application within five weeks of receipt, or a longer period agreed in writing. The wording is on legislation.gov.uk.
Full plans means the construction drawings and specification are checked before work starts. The other route, a building notice, lets work begin without that check, so problems surface on site. For anything structural we prefer the first.
Bexley made 877 householder planning decisions in the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, including prior approvals (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2).
Small buildings that may need no approval
Schedule 2 of the Regulations lists work that is exempt. A detached building with a floor area not exceeding 15m2 and no sleeping accommodation falls under Class 6. A ground-level conservatory, porch, covered yard or covered way, or a carport open on at least two sides, falls under Class 7 when its floor area does not exceed 30m2.
Each exemption carries conditions, and one that fails a condition is not exempt. Our guide to whether you need building regulations approval works through them, and we can check your own plans.
What Bexley's planning desk handled
Bexley made 877 householder planning decisions in the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, including prior approvals (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2). Those decisions are separate from building control, but they show how many householder proposals the borough handled in that year.
The national register holds 31 conservation-area entries for Bexley (our analysis of the MHCLG Planning Data Platform conservation-area dataset), and the council's own conservation area map shows whether a DA5 address falls inside one. A conservation area affects the planning side. It does not change the building regulations that apply inside the walls.
Our fixed fee
Building regulations drawings start from £745. See the pricing page for the full list, or the building regulations drawings hub for the service across London.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| five weeks | Building Regulations 2010 reg 14A(6): authority must notify the outcome of a full plans application within five weeks of receipt, or a longer period agreed in writing (source wording: five weeks) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 15m2 | Building Regulations 2010 Sch 2 Class 6 para 3: exempt detached building with floor area not exceeding 15m2 and no sleeping accommodation (source wording: 15m2) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 30m2 | Building Regulations 2010 Sch 2 Class 7: exempt ground-level conservatory, porch, covered yard or covered way, or carport open on two sides, with floor area not exceeding 30m2 (source wording: 30m2) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 877 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 31 | Our analysis of MHCLG Planning Data Platform conservation-area and article-4-direction datasets (bulk snapshot retrieved 14 Aug 2026) | www.planning.data.gov.uk |
| £745 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for building regulations drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
Questions people ask
Is Bexley building control the same as planning?
Do DA5 homes need anything different from the rest of Bexley?
Can I choose a private inspector instead of the council?
Photographs: Derek Harper (CC BY-SA 2.0).
