New build drawings across London's councils
New build drawings cost from £1,450 in every London borough. The fee does not change with the council, but the validation list, the conservation-area map and the officers do. This page sets out what is common to all 33 councils and points to our pages for individual boroughs.
Fixed fee from £1,250 drawings + £200 survey (£1,450 total) · all prices
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One fee for the drawings, a separate fee for the council
Our starting fee for new-build feasibility and planning drawings is £1,450, whichever borough the plot is in. The full list is on the pricing page.
The council charges its own fee, set nationally. From 1 April 2026 a full application for fewer than 10 dwellinghouses costs £610 for each dwellinghouse. The two payments are separate, and only the second goes to the council.
What stays the same wherever the plot is
Every London council reads a new-house application from the same core drawings: site plan, a floor plan for each storey, elevations and sections. The nationally described space standard applies in all of them. A one-bedroom, one-person home needs at least 37 m2 of gross internal area when it has a shower room, or 39 m2 with a bathroom.
The statutory decision period is also national. For an application that is not major development it is 8 weeks under article 34 of the Development Management Procedure Order.
In the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, London's 33 councils made 52,543 planning decisions of every kind (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2).
What London's councils decided
In the four quarters from 2025 Q3 to 2026 Q2, London's 33 councils made 52,543 planning decisions of every kind (our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2). Householder cases made up 23,967 of the decisions, if prior approvals are included, and 86% were granted.
A new house sits outside the householder category, so those numbers show how councils behave in general. They are not the odds for a new build, and no drawing set can promise an outcome.
What changes from borough to borough
Each council keeps its own list of what must accompany an application, its own policies on garden land, height and parking, and its own conservation-area and tree designations. That is why we check a plot against the local council before pricing, not after.
Our borough pages carry the council's decision and appeal record. The current ones are Bexley, Havering, Hillingdon and Lewisham. For any other borough, send the address and we will tell you what applies.
Where to go next
The London new-build drawings service describes what a set contains and how we work, and our guide to planning permission for a new build house covers the application route. If you are weighing options, compare architectural drawings by council or floor plans by council.
Sources
Every figure on this page, where it comes from and a link to the original.
| Figure | Source | Link |
|---|---|---|
| £1,450 | DrawingsDirect starting fixed fee for new build house feasibility and planning drawings, from the published price list | drawingsdirect.co.uk |
| £610 | Fees for planning applications in England from 1 April 2026 (MHCLG, SI 2012/2920 as annually indexed), category 1(3)(a): full application for the erection of fewer than 10 dwellinghouses, per dwellinghouse (source wording: "£610 for each dwellinghouse") | assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |
| 37 | Technical housing standards, nationally described space standard (DCLG, March 2015), Table 1: a one-bedroom one-person dwelling needs at least 39 m2 gross internal area, or 37 m2 with a shower room instead of a bathroom (source wording: 39 (37)) | assets.publishing.service.gov.uk |
| 23,967 | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 86% | Our analysis of MHCLG planning application statistics, table PS2 (district open data table) (released 24 Sep 2026, quarters to 2026 Q2) | www.gov.uk |
| 52,543 | 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 |