Dormer loft conversion in West Wickham: drawings for Bromley
A dormer loft conversion in West Wickham often needs no planning application, but it must still be drawn correctly to prove that. We prepare the drawings for a rear dormer from £695 with no VAT to add, and from £745 for an L-shaped dormer.
Fixed fee from £495 drawings + £200 survey (£695 total) · all prices
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Does a West Wickham dormer need planning permission?
Often not. A rear dormer on a single dwelling house can fall under permitted development, which means the work is allowed without a planning application as long as it stays inside the national limits. West Wickham sits in the London Borough of Bromley, and Bromley applies the same national rules as everywhere else in England, plus any local restriction that removes them.
The test is the shape of the dormer, not the postcode. The limits cover volume, how far the roof is pushed out, the materials and the side windows. If every limit is met you can build without permission, but you still need Building Regulations approval for the structure, the stairs, fire escape and insulation.
The two limits that catch most dormers
The first is volume. For a terrace house the General Permitted Development Order allows the roof space to grow by up to 40 cubic metres. That figure is the whole addition, so a dormer plus any earlier roof extension counts together. Semi-detached and detached houses have a larger allowance, which we confirm from your own survey rather than assume.
The second is the setback. The enlargement must sit not less than 0.2 metres back from the eaves, measured along the roof slope. A dormer drawn flush with the eaves is the commonest reason a scheme drops out of permitted development, and it is cheap to correct on paper before anything is built.
Bromley has 73 live conservation areas in the government's planning data.
Rear dormer or L-shaped: which drawings you need
A rear dormer is a single box on the back slope. Our fixed fee for its permitted development drawings is £695 with no VAT to add. An L-shaped dormer wraps round the back addition of a typical Bromley semi, giving more headroom over the stairs, and its drawings start at £745 with no VAT to add. Both fees are on our published price list with no form in front of them.
The set shows existing and proposed plans, sections and elevations, with the volume and setback calculations marked so the case can be checked quickly.
How Bromley handles householder applications
If your dormer cannot meet the limits, for example a front-facing dormer or one that is too deep, you apply for householder planning permission. Over the latest four quarters Bromley decided 1,609 householder applications and granted 79% of them, according to the government's planning application statistics.
Speed matters when you are paying a builder to wait. In the same four quarters 90% of householder decisions, excluding prior approvals, were made within eight weeks. Appeals are the other side of the picture: of 563 householder appeals decided by the Planning Inspectorate, 37% were allowed, so a refusal is not always the last word, though it is slow.
Conservation areas and removed rights around BR4
Bromley has 73 live conservation areas in the government's planning data. In a conservation area permitted development for roof additions is tighter, and a council direction can remove it altogether, so a dormer that would pass elsewhere may need a full application.
Check whether your road is covered before you commission anything. Bromley's own mapping shows the boundaries, and we run the same check at the start of every job so the drawings match the route you are actually on.
When a lawful development certificate is worth having
A lawful development certificate is the council's written confirmation that your dormer is permitted development. It is optional, but buyers' solicitors and lenders often like to see one, and it protects you if a neighbour questions the build later. Over eight quarters the council decided 1,030 of them, so officers handle them routinely.
The certificate application uses the same drawings as the permitted development set, which is why we prepare them once to the standard the council expects.
What happens after you instruct us
We confirm the house type, check the roof against the volume and setback limits, and tell you plainly if the scheme needs permission rather than drawing something that will be refused. You receive the drawings as PDFs ready for your builder, your structural engineer and, if you want one, a certificate application.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £695 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for rear dormer loft conversion permitted development drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| £745 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for L-shaped dormer loft conversion permitted development drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| 40 cubic metres | GPDO 2015 Sch 2 Pt 1 Class B.1(d)(i): roof additions may add up to 40 cubic metres to the roof space of a terrace house (source wording: "40 cubic metres in the case of a terrace house") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 0.2 metres | GPDO 2015 Sch 2 Pt 1 Class B.2(b): a roof enlargement must be set back not less than 0.2 metres from the eaves, measured along the roof slope (source wording: "not less than 0.2 metres from the eaves") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 1,609 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 79% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 90% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 563 | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 37% | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 73 | Our analysis of MHCLG Planning Data Platform conservation-area and article-4-direction datasets (bulk snapshot retrieved 19 Oct 2026) | www.planning.data.gov.uk |
| 1,030 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS1 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
Photographs: GRALISTAIR (CC BY-SA 4.0); GRALISTAIR (CC BY-SA 4.0); David Hawgood (CC BY-SA 2.0).
