Flat conversion drawings in Hither Green, SE13
Turning a house in Hither Green into flats is a change of use, so it goes through Lewisham as a planning application with drawings for the new layout. Our fixed fee for house-to-two-flats drawings, covering full planning and building regulations, starts at £1,195 with no VAT to add.
Fixed fee from £995 drawings + £200 survey (£1,195 total) · all prices
Prefer to talk it through?
Why splitting a house into flats is a planning matter
The Town and Country Planning Act 1990 treats the use of a building previously used as a single dwellinghouse as two or more separate dwellinghouses as a material change of use. That wording is the reason a Hither Green conversion cannot be handled as internal building work alone: the council has to be asked about the new use first.
If your plan is a loft conversion rather than flats, that is a different set of drawings. See our dormer loft conversion drawings, and for shared-house layouts look at HMO conversion drawings.
What the drawings fee covers and what the council charges separately
Our published starting price for house-to-two-flats drawings, covering full planning and building regulations, is £1,195 with no VAT to add. It is on the pricing page with no form in front of it.
That figure is ours and does not include the council's application fee. From 1 April 2026 the national fee for changing a single dwellinghouse into flats is £610 for each additional dwellinghouse. We show the council fee separately and do not mark it up; it is paid to the council and the receipt goes to you.
Our analysis of the Planning Inspectorate casework database (decisions 2021 to 2026) finds 162 householder-development appeals in Lewisham decided as allowed or dismissed, and 30% of them were allowed.
How Lewisham has been deciding householder applications
Lewisham made 1,256 planning decisions across the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, according to our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics (table PS2). Of those, 578 were householder decisions, including prior approvals, and 89% of the householder applications were granted.
These are householder figures, not flat-conversion figures. A conversion to flats is not a householder application, so treat the 89% as a sense of how the borough's planning team has been working rather than a forecast for your scheme. The same analysis finds 95% of householder decisions, excluding prior approvals, were made within 8 weeks.
The statutory decision period
For an application that is not major development, the Development Management Procedure Order 2015 sets a decision period of 8 weeks beginning with the day after the application is received. The count starts from receipt, so a complete set of drawings on the day you apply is what you control.
When a refusal goes to the Planning Inspectorate
Our analysis of the Planning Inspectorate casework database (decisions 2021 to 2026) finds 162 householder-development appeals in Lewisham decided as allowed or dismissed, and 30% of them were allowed. Again these are householder appeals, so they say little about flat schemes directly.
Whatever the figures, clear drawings of the layout at application stage are the part of the process you can control.
Check conservation areas before you design the layout
Our analysis of the MHCLG Planning Data Platform finds 30 live conservation-area entries for Lewisham (bulk snapshot retrieved 14 Aug 2026). The national register may not match the council's own list, so confirm your address with Lewisham before you settle on external changes such as new entrances, bin stores or window alterations that a conversion often brings.
Our guide to Article 4 directions in London explains what a direction can remove and how to find out whether one covers your street.
Building regulations for the new flats
A conversion into separate homes also needs building regulations drawings. Our house-to-two-flats price covers full planning and building regulations drawings together, so you do not buy them as two jobs. More on that stage is on our building regulations drawings page.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £1,195 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for house to two flats drawings (full planning and building regulations), with no VAT to add, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| two or more separate dwellinghouses | Town and Country Planning Act 1990 s55(3)(a): using a building previously used as a single dwellinghouse as two or more separate dwellinghouses is a material change of use (source wording: "the use as two or more separate dwellinghouses of any building previously used as a single dwellinghouse") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| £610 | Fees for planning applications in England from 1 April 2026 (MHCLG, SI 2012/2920 as annually indexed), category 12(1)(a): change of use of a single dwellinghouse to fewer than 10 dwellinghouses, per additional dwellinghouse (source wording: "£610 for each additional dwellinghouse") | assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |
| 578 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 89% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 95% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 162 | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 30% | Our analysis of Planning Inspectorate Casework Database (released 1 Oct 2026 (Casework Database 2609)) | www.gov.uk |
| 30 | 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 |
| 1,256 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 8 weeks | DMPO 2015 art 34(2)(b): decision period for an application that is not major development (source wording: "8 weeks beginning with the day immediately following that on which the application is received") | www.legislation.gov.uk |
Photographs: Tim Green from Bradford (CC BY 2.0).
.jpg){kind=link}