House plan application for a new build in London
A house plan application is a full planning application for a new dwelling, not the householder route used for extensions. You send the council scaled drawings, a design statement where the site calls for one, and a fee per dwellinghouse. For fewer than 10 dwellinghouses that statutory fee is £610 each.
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What the council expects to receive
The council judges a new dwelling largely from the drawings, so the set has to explain the whole building. That means a location plan and block plan, floor plans for every level, elevations of every face, and sections through the building and the ground it sits on.
The government's guidance on making an application lists what a valid application must contain.
Our new build drawings page describes the set we prepare, and the guide to planning drawings and building regulations drawings explains why the technical set comes later.
The council's fee and the statutory clock
Since 1 April 2026 the statutory fee for a full application to erect fewer than 10 dwellinghouses is £610 per dwellinghouse (SI 2012/2920, Schedule 1, Part 2). The council takes that fee directly; it is separate from what you pay for drawings.
Once an application is valid, the statutory decision period for an application that is not major development is 8 weeks, and for major development it is 13 weeks (DMPO 2015, article 34). Both start on the day after the council receives the application, and an applicant and council can agree a longer period in writing. Our guide on how long planning permission takes sets out how those periods are counted.
Councils across England made 291,861 planning decisions in the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2 (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2).
When a design and access statement is needed
In a conservation area or World Heritage Site, planning practice guidance requires a design and access statement for development of one or more dwellings. A new house on a street inside a conservation area therefore needs one, however small the plot.
Elsewhere the requirement depends on the size and type of scheme, so check before you submit. Our guide on what a design and access statement is covers what it should say, and the glossary entry on conservation areas explains how to find out whether your plot is in one.
How much work planning teams already carry
Councils across England made 291,861 planning decisions in the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2 (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2). A new dwelling sits in that queue alongside every extension and change of use, which is why a complete, correctly scaled set on first submission matters.
If anything in the application is missing the council can hold it as invalid, and the statutory clock does not run until it is valid.
Our fee for new build drawings
New build drawings start from £1,450 as a fixed fee. The pricing page lists the others, and our guide to getting planning permission step by step walks through the order of the whole process.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £610 | Statutory fee from 1 April 2026, SI 2012/2920 Sch 1 Pt 2 category 1(3)(a): full application for the erection of fewer than 10 dwellinghouses, per dwellinghouse | assets.publishing.service.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 receipt) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 13 weeks | DMPO 2015 art 34(2)(a): decision period for major development (source wording: 13 weeks beginning with the day immediately following receipt) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| one or more dwellings | Planning practice guidance, Making an application, paragraph 030 (ID 14-030-20140306): design and access statement required in a conservation area or World Heritage Site for development of one or more dwellings | www.gov.uk |
| 291,861 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| £1,450 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for new build drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |