Chartered planning drawings prepared for Havering Council — from Emerson Park's large plots to Gidea Park's garden-suburb conservation area and the green belt at London's edge, drawn to the borough's own guidance and revised free until you have a decision.
Many home projects in Havering do not need planning permission — single-storey rear extensions, most rear loft conversions and garden outbuildings can fall under permitted development if they stay within national limits, and the borough's generous plots often make that route comfortable. You will usually need a full application to Havering Council if any of the following apply:
Before you commit to a project, it helps to know how Havering Council actually decides. The figures below come from official planning statistics for the borough. Outer-East London refusals tend to trace back to a familiar list — bulk that unbalances a street, side extensions that close gaps between houses, overlooking, and, on the borough's edges, harm to green-belt openness. Every one of those objections can be anticipated on a well-prepared drawing, which is the approach behind every pack we submit.
Source: MHCLG planning application statistics (householder decisions, rolling year). Compare every borough on our London approval-rate league table.
Havering is London's easternmost borough and one of its most suburban, with a housing stock that rewards ambition. Romford, Hornchurch and Upminster carry broad streets of interwar and post-war family houses; Emerson Park is known for some of the largest residential plots in East London, where substantial extensions, annexes and even replacement dwellings come forward; and Gidea Park preserves the Edwardian garden-suburb layout of the 1911 exhibition estate, a scheme that drew architects such as those behind the Romford Garden Suburb and now sits under conservation-area protection alongside the historic cores of Romford and Rainham.
Those contexts pull in different directions. On an Emerson Park plot the constraint is rarely space — it is design quality, neighbour amenity and, on some roads, the character the Havering Local Plan seeks to protect. Inside the Gidea Park conservation area, whose updated appraisal and management plan the council reconsulted on in 2025 alongside Romford and Rainham, the grain of building lines, verges and roofscapes shapes what officers will accept, and some permitted development rights are withdrawn. And because Havering holds one of the largest shares of Metropolitan Green Belt of any London borough, properties around Havering-atte-Bower, Noak Hill and Cranham face the strictest tests of all: additions there are weighed against green-belt openness, not just neighbour impact.
We prepare architectural drawings across the borough with those distinctions built in from the first line — existing and proposed plans, elevations, location and block plans to recognised metric scales, plus the design or green-belt justification the site demands. Because we track live decision data for Havering, we can tell you before you spend anything whether your Hornchurch, Upminster or Rainham project looks like an approval or needs reshaping.
Tell us your postcode and project. We score the odds against live Havering decision data and flag the Gidea Park conservation area, green-belt designations and used-up PD allowances before you commit.
We measure the property and produce accurate existing plans and elevations — the baseline Havering's validation team checks first.
Chartered designers draw the scheme to Havering's guidance, answering amenity, character and — where relevant — green-belt openness points on the page.
We submit via the Planning Portal, handle validation queries and liaise with your case officer through the eight-week determination period.
Whether it's a wraparound extension on an Upminster semi, a substantial rear addition on an Emerson Park plot or a carefully judged alteration inside Gidea Park's garden-suburb conservation area, we draw to the way Havering's case officers actually read a scheme — context first, objections answered on the page.
Havering's validation checklist is strict about scales and completeness. Every pack we prepare for the borough includes:
Every affected floor at 1:100 or 1:50, dimensioned and labelled, so the officer can see exactly what changes and what stays.
All elevations altered by the work, with materials annotated — matching brick and roof tile matters on Havering's uniform suburban streets.
OS-based, site edged in red, any other land in your control edged in blue, with a north point on a recognised paper size.
Showing the proposal against boundaries and neighbours — particularly important on Emerson Park's large plots, where siting and separation carry the argument.
Loft conversions and dormers are usually asked for a roof plan and a section showing head heights and dormer set-backs from the eaves.
In the Gidea Park conservation area, a proportionate heritage statement; on green-belt sites, a justification addressing openness — both drafted alongside the drawings.
Southern Havering is in the middle of the largest change the borough has seen in a generation. The Rainham and Beam Park Housing Zone is turning a declining industrial belt along the A1306 New Road into a new urban quarter, with roughly 3,500 homes planned across South Hornchurch, Rainham and Wennington over ten to fifteen years — a programme significant enough that a dedicated Beam Park electoral ward, returning two councillors, was created for the 2022 borough elections.
For most homeowners in Rainham, Elm Park or South Hornchurch this changes little day to day, but it does mean Havering's planners are handling everything from masterplan phases to single-storey rear extensions at once. Accurate, complete drawings are simply the fastest way to keep a modest householder application moving through a busy service, and it helps to know that the historic Rainham village core — clustered around Rainham Hall and the parish church — carries its own conservation-area controls that a suburban extension nearby has to respect.
Whether your project is a loft in Harold Wood, a rear extension in Elm Park or an annexe on a large Upminster plot, we draw to Havering's validation checklist and its residential design expectations, then flag any Beam Park, green-belt or conservation-area constraint before a line is committed.
Tell us about your project and get a fixed, no-obligation quote back within one working day. If you don't need planning permission at all, we'll tell you that too — for free.
Havering Council decides householder applications for Havering, and its recent record and the permitted-development limits that apply here set out below give Romford homeowners a realistic starting point before any drawing begins.
| Measure | Figure for Havering |
|---|---|
| Havering Council householder approval rate | 85% |
| England-wide householder benchmark | 87% |
| Loft dormer permitted-development limit (Class B) | 40m³ terrace / 50m³ semi or detached |
| Single-storey rear extension depth (Class A) | 3m terrace / 4m detached |
| Dominant housing era | interwar (1918–1939) and postwar (1945–1970) |
| Statutory decision period | 8 weeks |
| Conservation / Article 4 status | Article 4 direction in force; PD removed in Langtons (Hornchurch), Upminster (Tithe Barn) and Rainham Village |
Havering runs 2 points below the national average. Approval rate: MHCLG householder planning statistics for Havering Council; permitted-development limits: GPDO 2015, Schedule 2, Part 1 (Classes A–B).
Yes — the Gidea Park garden suburb is a designated conservation area, reflecting its origins as planned exhibition housing in the early twentieth century. Proposals there face closer scrutiny of design, materials, building lines and roofscape, and some permitted development rights are restricted. We check your address against the council's designations before any drawing work begins.
Often yes, but the tests are stricter. Extensions to houses in the green belt are generally acceptable only where they are not disproportionate to the original building, and outbuildings are weighed against openness. The strength of the drawing pack and the supporting justification matter more here than anywhere else in the borough — we prepare both together.
It depends on scale. Emerson Park's plots are generous enough that many single-storey schemes fall within permitted development, but substantial rear additions, two-storey extensions and annexes usually need a full application, and some roads carry their own character considerations. We assess the smarter route — PD with a lawful development certificate, or a full application — at the free approval check stage.
The statutory period is eight weeks from validation, and most straightforward householder applications in Havering are decided within it. Green-belt or conservation-area cases can take longer or be extended by agreement. We monitor the application throughout and respond quickly to case-officer queries so the clock keeps moving.
A householder application needs existing and proposed floor plans and elevations at 1:100 or 1:50, a site location plan at 1:1250 with the site edged red, and a block plan. Loft schemes usually add a roof plan and section; Gidea Park proposals need a heritage statement and green-belt sites a justification on openness. Our packs cover the full validation checklist.
Most refusals are resolved by targeted amendment — reducing a projection, adjusting siting on a larger plot, or reworking a roofline. We revise the drawings free of charge and resubmit; a repeat householder application within twelve months of refusal usually attracts no further council fee.
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