Rear and house extension drawings for Sydenham SE26
A single-storey rear extension in Sydenham starts from £695 with DrawingsDirect with no VAT to add, covering the survey and the planning or permitted development drawings. Whether the drawings go to Lewisham as a householder application or as a permitted development route depends mostly on how far the extension projects: up to 3 metres beyond the original rear wall for most non-detached houses, up to 6 metres only through the prior approval process.
Fixed fee from £495 drawings + £200 survey (£695 total) · all prices
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What the £695 covers for a rear extension
The published starting fee for single-storey rear extension drawings is £695, with no VAT to add. It buys the measured survey of your house and the drawing set for either a planning application or a permitted development submission. The same figure appears on our pricing page, so it is the one you will be quoted against.
Council charges are separate and go straight to the council. They are not part of our fee and we do not add anything to them.
Rear extension or loft: which are you drawing?
People in Sydenham who search for a rear extension often search for a loft extension, a Victorian-house loft conversion or a hip-to-gable conversion in the same session. They are different drawing jobs with different rules. A rear extension is judged on its depth, height, boundary position and effect on neighbours' gardens. A loft is judged on roof form, volume and what it does to the street.
This page is about the ground-floor and rear side: single-storey rear extensions and wider house extensions. If your plan combines a rear extension with a loft, say so when you ask for a quote, because the survey is done once and the drawings need to agree with each other.
Lewisham determined 85 larger home extension prior approvals over the latest eight quarters of published figures, and 5% were granted.
How far can the extension go without a planning application?
Under the General Permitted Development Order, a single-storey rear extension on a house other than a detached one may project up to 3 metres beyond the rear wall of the original house. Other limits apply on height, the eaves, materials, side extensions and how much of the plot is built on, so 3 metres is the starting test, not the whole test.
The same order allows a larger home extension of up to 6 metres on a house other than a detached one, but only after prior approval. The council notifies your neighbours and can refuse if the impact on them is unacceptable. That is a separate procedure from a householder planning application, and it needs its own drawings and a written description.
What Lewisham's recent decisions look like
The figures in this section are Lewisham's, the council this page is tied to. Check which council holds your address before relying on them.
Lewisham decided 578 householder applications in the latest four quarters of published government statistics, and 89% were granted. Of the householder applications that were not prior approvals, 95% were decided within the eight-week target. Those are council-wide figures for every kind of householder work, not only rear extensions, and they describe the past rather than promise anything about your own application.
The council's householder application fee is £548 for the enlargement, improvement or alteration of a single dwellinghouse, from the April fee schedule.
The prior approval route in Lewisham is rarely a quiet one
Lewisham determined 85 larger home extension prior approvals over the latest eight quarters of published figures, and 5% were granted. Read that carefully: it means very few of these applications got through on that route in that period, and a long extension planned under prior approval should not be assumed to be safe.
If your design needs more than 3 metres at the back, the drawings should be built so that they can also support a householder application. That gives you somewhere to go if the prior approval route does not suit the neighbours' circumstances.
Appeals and conservation areas to check before you draw
Of the 162 householder appeals the Planning Inspectorate has decided for Lewisham in its casework database, 30% were allowed. So a refusal is not the final word, but most appeals did not succeed, and an appeal costs time that a cleaner first application avoids.
Lewisham has 30 live conservation areas in the government's planning data. If your street is inside one, ask the council whether a direction has withdrawn permitted development rights there before you plan around the 3 metres limit.
What we need from you to start
Send the address, a short description of what you want to build and any photographs you already have. We will confirm whether the work looks like permitted development, prior approval or a householder application, and quote the fixed fee in writing before we start.
We are a practice of chartered architectural technologists. Our drawings follow the council's validation requirements. We do not promise a decision, because the council makes it, not us.
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 single-storey rear extension drawings (survey and planning or permitted development drawings), with no VAT to add, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| 3 metres | GPDO 2015 Sch 2 Pt 1 Class A.1(f)(i): a single-storey rear extension may extend beyond the rear wall of the original house by up to 3 metres, house other than detached (source wording: 3 metres) | www.legislation.gov.uk |
| 6 metres | GPDO 2015 Sch 2 Pt 1 Class A.1(g): larger home extension under the prior approval process (A.4), house other than detached, up to 6 metres beyond the original rear wall (source wording: 6 metres) | www.legislation.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 |
| 85 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS1 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 5% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS1 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| £548 | Fees for planning applications in England from 1 April 2026 (MHCLG, SI 2012/2920 as annually indexed), category 6(1): householder application for the enlargement, improvement or alteration of a single dwellinghouse (source wording: £548) | assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |
Photographs: David Hawgood (CC BY-SA 2.0); David Hawgood (CC BY-SA 2.0).
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