Extensions & loft conversions
Respond to conservation-area character, roofscape consistency and neighbouring amenity in established streets.
Discuss your project ↗Local planning advice
Planning Consultants in Lewisham
Planning advice for extensions, conversions and development across Lewisham's growth areas, town centres and established neighbourhoods.
Town Planners
Understanding your location
A local approach
to your project
Lewisham is a borough of contrasts, and those contrasts are exactly what make it interesting to work in. The area around Lewisham town centre and Catford is one of the most active development environments in South London – well-connected, with identified capacity for significant housing growth and a council that has been broadly supportive of intensification in accessible locations. A few miles away, the established Victorian and Edwardian terraces of Forest Hill, Sydenham and Hither Green are assessed with a much greater emphasis on character, scale and neighbour amenity. Understanding which context you are working in is the essential starting point for any proposal.
Local planning context
Lewisham combines strategic growth around Lewisham and Catford with established Victorian and Edwardian neighbourhoods in Blackheath, Forest Hill, Lee and Hither Green. The planning response therefore changes materially between major centres and sensitive residential streets. Housing delivery, design quality, heritage, flood risk and neighbour amenity frequently overlap. A proposal needs to respond to its own location rather than rely on the borough's wider growth role.
How decisions are made
Decision-making is guided by the adopted Lewisham Local Plan, the London Plan and property-specific designations. Larger regeneration, taller-building and heritage-sensitive schemes receive a wider level of design and policy scrutiny. Routine applications still turn on the quality of plans and operational detail, including daylight, outlook, refuse, cycles, parking and the relationship with neighbouring homes.
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Conservation Area
Flood Zone 2
Flood Zone 3
Listed Building
Green Belt / AONB
Article 4 Direction
How we can help
Planning for your next step
Advice matched to the project and its local planning context.
Conversions & intensification
Resolve unit quality, outlook, refuse, cycle storage and parking near Lewisham, Catford and other stations.
Discuss your project ↗Town-centre regeneration
Coordinate density, height, mixed uses and transport effects within Lewisham's principal growth locations.
Discuss your project ↗Heritage & conservation
Use character appraisals and proportionate heritage evidence in Blackheath, Ladywell, Lee Manor and other designated areas.
Discuss your project ↗Backland & infill development
Test access, servicing, overlooking and how a new layout fits the existing urban grain.
Discuss your project ↗Prior approval & changes of use
Check the current class, permitted development conditions and any local restrictions before choosing the application route.
Discuss your project ↗Local constraints
Character, heritage and setting
The London Borough of Lewisham includes a range of planning constraints that frequently shape development outcomes:
Growth areas and residential transitions
Higher-density development may be supported in identified growth locations, while transitions to established neighbourhoods require careful height, massing and amenity work.
Check the policies map ↗Conservation areas and river corridors
Heritage designations, Article 4 directions and flood risk along the Ravensbourne and Quaggy can alter design and supporting evidence.
Heritage & conservation advice ↗Lewisham council directory
29
Conservation areas
Council sources checked 11 September 2026.
All 29 current names are included below. Check the council’s boundary map and appraisal for the property before relying on a designation.
View all 29 conservation areas
- Beckenham Place Park
- Belmont
- Blackheath
- Brockley
- Brookmill Road
- Cobb’s Corner
- Culverley Green
- Deptford Creekside
- Deptford High Street and St Paul’s
- Deptford Town Hall
- Forest Hill
- Halifax Street
- Hatcham
- Jews Walk
- Ladywell
- Lee Manor
- Lewisham Park
- Mercia Grove
- Perry Fields
- Perry Vale and the Christmas Estate
- Somerset Gardens
- St John’s
- St Mary’s
- St Stephen’s
- Stanstead Grove
- Sydenham Hill
- Sydenham Park
- Sydenham Thorpes
- Telegraph Hill
The council’s current directory contains 29 named areas; the malformed “0” national-feed record is excluded.
Listed-building status is a separate check. Search Historic England’s list ↗
Planning policy & housing delivery
The policy position in Lewisham
A clear starting point for understanding the documents that can influence your proposal.
Editorial review: 11 September 2026 · Automated website monitoring is not enabled
Adopted · 16 July 2025
Lewisham Local Plan 2020–2040
The Local Plan adopted in July 2025 is the borough-wide starting point and should be read with the London Plan and other parts of the development plan.
Official source ↗Site-specific
Adopted policies map
The adopted map shows area-based policies and designations that may affect the site.
Official source ↗Local guidance
Conservation and design material
Character appraisals and supplementary guidance help explain the design response expected in sensitive areas.
Official source ↗Monitoring
Delivery and infrastructure evidence
Monitoring and the infrastructure delivery plan provide dated evidence about how the strategy is being implemented.
Official source ↗Housing delivery and land supply
Housing delivery, future targets and the supply of deliverable sites are different measures. Their implications depend on the relevant publication, reporting period and the policy position at the time of an application. We check that evidence where it is material to your proposal.
The adopted development plan remains the starting point in Lewisham. Any emerging plan, monitoring report or supply statement must be checked for its latest status before it is relied upon.
Source changes enter an editorial review queue. A source check does not by itself change this guidance.
Local planning insight
Planning performance
in Lewisham
Explore application decisions and appeal outcomes to understand the local picture. Use the figures alongside the policies, constraints and circumstances of your own project.
Official-source snapshot · checked 11 September 2026. Applications: year ending September 2025. Appeals: April 2024–March 2025. Automatic updates are not connected in this local review.
The application picture
Volume, outcomes and decision-making.
Reporting period
Year ending september 2025
Applications received
1,449
New applications recorded in the reporting period.
Applications decided
1,422
Decisions recorded in the period, including applications received earlier.
Applications granted
86.2%
England: 86.9%
0.7 percentage points below England.
97.5% of decisions delegated to officers · England: 96.3%
Delegation describes how decisions were made; it does not measure the quality of the decision.
Delegation describes how decisions were made; it does not measure the quality of the decision.
Decision speed
These rates count decisions made within the statutory period or within agreed additional time, using the saved official measure. Lewisham and England cover the same reporting period and development category.
Major applications
Within statutory or agreed time
+4.7 pp above England
Householder applications
Within statutory or agreed time
+3.7 pp above England
Other non-major applications
Within statutory or agreed time · includes householders
+4.9 pp above England
All bars use a 0–100% scale · pp = percentage points
What this means for your project
A borough-wide grant rate is useful background. It is not your proposal's probability of approval: the design, policy position and site constraints still need individual assessment.
Allow for the full process
A decision-time percentage does not give an average wait in weeks. Validation, supporting information and any agreed extension can affect your programme.
The appeal picture
Different appeal routes, shown separately.
Reporting period
April 2024–march 2025
Planning appeals
44 decisions · 14 allowed or split
31.8%
Allowed or split
14Allowed or split
30Other decisions
England: 25.5%
6.3 percentage points above England.
Householder appeals
16 decisions · 8 allowed or split
50.0%
Allowed or split
8Allowed or split
8Other decisions
England: 37.8%
12.2 percentage points above England.
Enforcement appeals
11 decisions · 0 quashed or varied
0.0%
Quashed or varied
0Quashed or varied
11Other decisions
England: 11.1%
11.1 percentage points below England.
Read the numbers in context
The householder rate describes 75 decided appeals, not all refused applications. The headline percentage counts allowed decisions; split decisions are shown separately. These figures do not predict a future appeal’s outcome.
Choose the route on its merits
Whether to appeal, revise or resubmit depends on the refusal reasons and the evidence available. An authority-wide percentage is only one part of that context.
What do these measures mean?
- Received and decided: separate totals for the reporting period. Dividing one by the other does not show the proportion of those applications completed.
- Decision speed: the displayed measure counts decisions within the statutory period where there is no performance agreement, or within the agreed period where there is one. It is not an average wait in weeks. Non-major development includes householders, so those rows must not be added together.
- Appeals: allowed (or quashed/granted) outcomes are divided by decided appeals. Split decisions are shown separately and excluded from the headline numerator, matching the published PINS percentage definition.
- England: application comparisons use the published England row. Appeal comparisons are calculated from the sum of the counts across all LPA rows in PINS Table 5.1, including legacy authorities.
- Rounding: percentages and differences are displayed to one decimal place. Differences use the unrounded source values. No trend is inferred from one period.
Sources, dates and updates
Applications: MHCLG planning-performance data, year ending September 2025. Figures are a saved official-source snapshot for Lewisham.
Appeals: Planning Inspectorate decisions by local planning authority, April 2024–March 2025.
The displayed fields were retained from the saved official-source release and reviewed on 11 September 2026. Automatic source checks and publication are not connected in this local review.
Our approach
How we deliver robust planning advice
Authority. Experience. Delivery.
Every instruction is approached through the same disciplined framework: authoritative policy analysis, experienced professional judgement and clear, practical delivery.
This gives clients a defensible planning strategy and a realistic route from the first review to the final decision.
Authority
Policy-led advice
Our advice is grounded in adopted development plans, national planning policy and local decision-making context, ensuring proposals are realistic, defensible and aligned with how authorities assess development.
Planning judgement
Beyond policy compliance, we apply informed professional judgement to assess risk, balance competing considerations and shape proposals that are likely to succeed in practice.
Experience
Depth of experience
We advise across a wide range of residential, commercial and heritage projects, bringing practical experience of varied sites, constraints and local authority approaches.
Delivery
Clear, honest guidance
We provide straightforward advice, explain constraints and risks clearly, and guide clients through the planning process with transparency and realism at every stage.
Integrated planning and design support
Our planning advice is closely coordinated with design input, allowing policy, layout and scale to be considered together and resolved efficiently.
Rubix Planning provides clear, policy-led planning advice grounded in professional judgement and real decision-making experience. Our role is to help clients understand what is realistically achievable and how best to proceed.
Your questions
Planning in Lewisham: FAQs
Is Lewisham a good location for development?
Lewisham is one of the more growth-supportive boroughs in inner London, particularly around its town centre Opportunity Area and key transport nodes. However, the borough is not uniformly permissive - suburban areas and conservation areas maintain firm character expectations, and proposals need to be carefully tailored to their specific context rather than relying on the borough’s growth credentials alone. Planning applications advice ↗
Do I need planning permission for works in Blackheath conservation area?
In most cases, yes. Many permitted development rights are restricted within conservation areas, meaning that extensions, roof alterations and external changes that might be permissible elsewhere will require a formal planning application. This is particularly relevant for roof-level works and rear extensions visible from the public realm.
Why does Lewisham have such a strong enforcement record?
Recent performance suggests that the authority is selective and well-evidenced in the cases it pursues. Rather than taking a scattergun approach, Lewisham appears to focus enforcement resources on clear breaches where the planning harm is demonstrable, and the evidential basis is robust.
Are flat conversions straightforward in Lewisham?
They are common and generally supported in appropriate locations, but outcomes turn on operational detail rather than principle. Unit sizes, daylight, outlook, refuse storage, cycle provision and parking are all closely assessed, and poorly resolved layouts are a frequent reason for refusal or delay.
How does the Lewisham Opportunity Area work in practice?
The Opportunity Area designation provides policy support for significantly higher-density development, including taller buildings, within and around Lewisham town centre. In practice, this means that proposals which would be resisted in suburban locations may be actively supported in the growth area - provided they meet demanding design, environmental and transport standards.
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Contact us
Chartered town planning consultants providing clear, policy-led advice across London and the South East.
0333 444 0208info@rubixplanning.com