New Build Drawings in Ealing

A 'new build' in planning and construction terms is a completely new dwelling: a home built from scratch on a plot, rather than an extension, alteration or conversion of an existing building. In Ealing that covers several common scenarios — a brand-new house on a vacant or newly created plot, a replacement dwelling where an existing house or bungalow is demolished and a new one built in its place, an infill house squeezed into a gap between existing properties, a backland or garden-land house built behind an existing street frontage, and small residential developments of two or more new homes. In every one of these cases you are creating new floorspace and a new dwelling, and that engages the full weight of the planning and building-control systems.

'New build drawings' is the shorthand for the complete set of drawings that a new dwelling needs across its whole life, from first sketch to finished home. That set is not one document or one stage; it is three distinct packages, each produced for a different purpose. The planning drawings are prepared to win full planning permission from Ealing Council — they show the council what the home will look like, how big it is, where it sits, and how it responds to its surroundings. The building regulations drawings are prepared to satisfy Building Control that the home will be safe, warm, healthy and structurally sound. And the construction drawings — the technical package — are what the builder actually builds from on site.

These three sets overlap but are emphatically not the same. A planning drawing might show a wall as a single line and leave its make-up entirely open; a building regulations drawing has to show what that wall is made of and how it performs thermally and for fire; and a construction drawing has to show exactly how it is built, junction by junction, with dimensions, materials and fixings the builder can price and set out. A new build drawn only to planning standard is nowhere near ready to build, and a great deal of the cost, delay and dispute on new homes comes from treating the planning drawing as the finished design when it is only the first of the three stages.

Behind all three drawing sets sits the engineering. A new dwelling needs a full structural design — foundations sized to the ground conditions, a complete load-bearing frame, floors, walls and a roof structure all designed and calculated — and a full building-services (MEP) design covering heating, hot water, ventilation, electrics, water and drainage. On a new build these are not optional add-ons; they are integral to the drawings, because the structure and services have to be threaded through the building from the start. Crown designs the architecture, the structure and the services together, in one office, so the drawing set you receive is genuinely buildable rather than a good-looking plan that falls apart when an engineer or a builder gets hold of it.

The people we prepare new build drawings for in Ealing fall into a few recognisable groups. The first is the individual homeowner or family building their own home — often on a plot they own, in the garden of an existing house, or on a replacement-dwelling basis where they demolish a tired bungalow or house and build a modern family home in its place. For this client the home is deeply personal, the budget is real, and the priority is a home that is beautiful, comfortable, energy-efficient and delivered without nasty surprises. The full coordinated drawing set is what protects them from those surprises.

The second group is the small-scale developer or investor: someone who has spotted a plot, a backland site, a large corner garden or a redundant garage court, and wants to build one, two or a handful of new homes for sale or rent. For this client the drawings have to do two jobs — win a permission that stacks up commercially, and support a build that comes in on budget — and the difference between a well-drawn and a poorly-drawn scheme is measured directly in profit. We work with developers to test what a site can viably yield before committing to a full application.

The third group is the landowner or homeowner sitting on plot potential they have not yet realised — a big garden, a double plot, a corner site, an old outbuilding — who wants to know honestly whether a new home is achievable there before they spend money. For this client the first piece of work is feasibility: an appraisal of what Ealing's policies and the site's constraints would actually allow, so they can decide with open eyes whether to proceed, sell the plot with a permission attached, or leave it.

Across all three groups the common thread is that a new dwelling is a serious undertaking with no shortcuts. It needs full planning permission, a full building-regulations approval, a proper structural and services design, and a construction-quality drawing set — and it benefits enormously from having all of that produced by one coordinated team rather than assembled piecemeal from an architect, a separate engineer and a builder each working from different information. That single-team approach is exactly what Crown offers on Ealing new builds.

The first and most important point about any new dwelling in Ealing is that it almost always needs full planning permission. Building a new house is not permitted development. The permitted development rights that let existing homeowners add extensions, loft conversions and outbuildings without a planning application apply to alterations and enlargements of an existing dwelling — they do not authorise the creation of a brand-new, separate dwelling. Creating a new home is, in planning terms, both operational development (building work) and, usually, the creation of a new planning unit, and that requires a full planning application judged on its merits against the development plan.

This is true whether the new home is a detached house on its own plot, a replacement for a demolished dwelling, an infill house between two existing properties, or a house in a back garden. It is true even where the plot already has a building on it, because demolishing one dwelling and building another is not a like-for-like alteration; it is the erection of a new dwelling. And it is true for a single house as much as for a development of several — the difference is the scale of the application, not whether one is needed. The only common exceptions are narrow and specific (for example certain agricultural or forestry dwellings under strict tests, or a small number of prior-approval routes that do not apply to ordinary new homes), and none of them is a general 'build a new house without permission' shortcut.

Because it is a full application, the whole of Ealing's Local Plan and the London Plan come into play. Unlike a permitted-development or prior-approval route, where the council can only consider a defined list of matters, a full application for a new dwelling opens up every relevant policy: the principle of development on the site, housing density and mix, the design and appearance of the home, its impact on neighbours' amenity and on the character of the area, space and daylight standards for the new home itself, trees and landscaping, parking and access, drainage and flood risk, energy and sustainability, and — on larger schemes — affordable housing. The drawings and supporting documents have to answer all of it.

The practical consequence is that a new build in Ealing is won or lost on the quality of the full application, and the drawings are the heart of that application. There is no light-touch route to fall back on. That makes the early work — establishing the principle of a new dwelling on the site, and designing a home that genuinely meets the borough's standards — the single most valuable thing we do, because a new-build application that is designed to pass is worth far more than one that is submitted in hope and refused.

A new dwelling in Ealing is normally submitted as a full planning application, which seeks permission for the complete, detailed scheme in one go — the siting, the design, the appearance, the materials, the landscaping and the access all fixed and assessed together. For most single new homes and small developments this is the right route, because it gives certainty: once permission is granted, you know exactly what you can build. We prepare the detailed drawings and supporting documents the full application needs and manage it through Ealing's validation and determination.

There is an alternative route — outline planning permission — which establishes the principle of a new dwelling on a site while leaving some or all of the detail ('reserved matters' such as appearance, landscaping, layout and scale) to be approved later. Outline can be useful where a landowner wants to establish that a site can take a new home before investing in a full design, or where a plot is to be sold with the principle of development already secured. But most people building a home they intend to occupy or a small development they intend to deliver go straight to a full application, because it is more efficient to design and consent the whole thing once.

Where the site has any heritage sensitivity — a listed building on or near it, or a location within one of Ealing's many conservation areas — additional consents can be needed alongside the planning application. Demolishing a building in a conservation area, or altering or affecting a listed building, may require conservation-area consent or listed building consent, and these run in parallel with the planning application. We identify at feasibility whether any of these apply to your site, because they change the drawings and the evidence required.

Whichever route is used, Ealing offers pre-application advice, and on a new dwelling — where the principle of development is often the key question — it is frequently worth using. A written steer from the council on whether a new home is acceptable in principle on your site, and on the scale and design it would support, can save the cost of a refused full application and shows the eventual case officer that the scheme has been developed in dialogue with the council. We advise on whether pre-application is worthwhile for your specific plot, and prepare the material for it.

The London Borough of Ealing earned its enduring nickname, 'the Queen of the Suburbs', in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when leafy, well-planned residential development spread outward from its old village green and made the district a byword for the comfortable, green London suburb — halfway, as the phrase went, between the city and the country. It is a large west London borough made up of seven distinct towns — Acton, Ealing itself, Greenford, Hanwell, Northolt, Perivale and Southall — each with its own history, high street and character, and each with its own pattern of plots, gardens and buildings that shape where new homes can go.

Ealing's growth was driven by the railway. The Great Western Railway pushed west through the borough from 1838, and the arrival of the District Railway in 1879 turned Ealing from village to prosperous suburb; Ealing became a municipal borough in 1901, and the modern London Borough of Ealing was formed in 1965 by merging Ealing, Acton and Southall. That railway heritage is echoed today by the Elizabeth line, which serves Ealing Broadway, West Ealing, Hanwell, Acton Main Line and Southall and has renewed demand for homes right across the borough — demand the new Local Plan is trying to meet with tens of thousands of additional homes to 2039.

The borough's landmarks reward attention and are directly relevant to new building. At the heart of old Ealing stands Pitzhanger Manor, the Grade I listed villa remodelled from 1800 by the architect Sir John Soane as his own country retreat, set within Walpole Park — a Grade II registered park of around 28 acres that opened to the public in 1901. Ealing was also the cradle of British film: Ealing Studios, the oldest continuously working film studios in the world, gave the borough a cultural fame far beyond west London. Southall, meanwhile, grew around the Grand Junction (now Grand Union) Canal of the 1790s and the factories that followed, and is today one of the most vibrant South Asian centres in Britain.

For a new-build project this context is not decoration — it is planning-relevant in the most practical way. Ealing has a large number of designated conservation areas, a rich stock of statutory and locally listed buildings, mature street trees, and treasured open spaces, and a plot within or adjoining any of these faces additional design, heritage and tree constraints. A new house on a plain suburban street in Greenford or Northolt is a very different proposition from a replacement dwelling in a conservation area near Ealing Green, or an infill plot on a leafy Hanwell street lined with protected trees. Knowing exactly where your plot sits on Ealing's map — its designations, its trees, its flood zone and the grain of its surroundings — is the foundation of a credible new-build design.

Ealing's housing stock is exactly the kind that generates new-build opportunities. Large swathes of the borough are made up of inter-war and Edwardian suburban houses on generous plots, post-war estates, and pockets of bungalows and single-storey buildings that are increasingly seen as under-using their land. It is this pattern — big gardens, wide plots, low-density corners and ageing single dwellings — that produces the four classic Ealing new-build scenarios: the replacement dwelling, the infill plot, the backland or garden-land house, and the small residential development.

The replacement dwelling is one of the most common. An owner buys or already holds a tired bungalow, a small dated house or a poorly configured property, and wants to demolish it and build a larger, modern, energy-efficient home in its place. These schemes succeed where the replacement respects the scale, height and character of the street and does not overwhelm its neighbours or the plot; they run into trouble where the new house is simply too big, too tall or too dominant for its context. The design has to demonstrate that the replacement is a good fit, not just a bigger house.

Infill plots — a new house squeezed into a gap between existing properties, on the end of a terrace, or on an unusually wide plot that can be subdivided — are the next category. Ealing has many wide suburban plots and corner sites where a carefully designed additional home can sit comfortably, but infill has to overcome real tests: adequate separation from neighbours, no unacceptable overlooking or loss of light, a proper plot width and garden for the new home, and a design that reads as a genuine part of the street rather than a cramped afterthought. The arithmetic of infill is unforgiving, and a plot that looks big enough on a map often is not once amenity, parking and garden standards are applied.

Backland and garden-land plots — a new house built behind an existing street frontage, in a back garden or on land accessed by a narrow drive — are the most contentious. Ealing, like most London boroughs, is cautious about backland and garden development because of its potential to create cramped, poorly accessed, poorly overlooked homes that harm the character of an established area — the concern often called 'garden-grabbing'. These schemes are not impossible, but they face the highest bar: access, privacy, amenity, trees, refuse and the impact on the existing homes all have to be resolved convincingly. We are honest at feasibility about whether a backland plot can carry a home to Ealing's standards before any money is spent on a full design.

A new dwelling is judged against Ealing's development plan, so knowing which policy themes apply lets us design the home to satisfy them by name rather than hoping to meet them by accident. Ealing is in the middle of a major planning update: the council submitted a new Local Plan covering the period 2024 to 2039 to the government on 18 November 2024, and it is being examined by an independent inspector. The examination has flagged density and tall buildings, housing supply, infrastructure and climate action as key issues. Until the new plan is adopted, the existing adopted development plan documents continue to carry weight, and both are relevant to how a new home is assessed today.

Density is central to how Ealing judges new homes. London long ago moved away from a rigid density matrix towards a 'design-led' approach, in which the acceptable number of homes on a site is determined by whether a well-designed scheme of that scale fits its context — its character, its access to public transport, its impact on neighbours and the quality of the homes it produces — rather than by a fixed dwellings-per-hectare figure. In practice this means a new-build scheme has to make its density case through design: showing that the number and size of homes proposed can be accommodated to a genuinely high standard on the plot, with proper amenity, daylight and separation, rather than simply asserting a target number of units.

Design quality is assessed under both the Local Plan and the London Plan. A new home has to respond to the character, scale, massing, materials and rhythm of its surroundings; to sit comfortably against its neighbours in height and bulk; and to be genuinely well-designed in its own right. Ealing has published specific guidance on tall buildings, setting out where additional height is and is not appropriate and the design tests it must pass — relevant to any new-build scheme that proposes more than the prevailing height of its street. For most single new homes and small developments the design challenge is not height but fit: a home that reads as a natural, high-quality addition to its street.

Housing mix and affordable housing come into play as schemes get larger. Ealing's emerging plan strengthens affordable-housing expectations — increasing the threshold for the 'fast-track' route to 40% affordable housing — so a development of a certain size will have to make an affordable-housing contribution or provision in line with the Local Plan and the London Plan, and to provide an appropriate mix of dwelling sizes. A single self-build home is not caught by the affordable-housing requirement, but a developer building several homes needs to factor it into the scheme's viability from the outset. We identify the specific adopted and emerging policies that apply to your site at the start and design the scheme to meet them by name.

Because the four new-build scenarios in Ealing raise different issues, it is worth being specific about the tests each faces, since the design has to be built around them. A replacement dwelling — demolishing an existing home and building a new one — is generally acceptable in principle, because the site is already residential. The battle on a replacement is scale and character: the new house must not be so much larger, taller or bulkier than what it replaces (or than its neighbours) that it harms the character of the street or the amenity of adjoining homes. A replacement that is a proportionate, well-designed home for its plot usually succeeds; one that maximises volume at the expense of context usually meets resistance.

Infill — a new home on a gap, a subdivided plot or a corner — turns on whether the plot can genuinely accommodate an additional dwelling to full standards. The key tests are plot width and the resulting spacing between buildings, adequate private garden and amenity space for the new home, no unacceptable overlooking or loss of privacy either way, no unacceptable loss of daylight or sunlight to neighbours, workable access and parking, and a design that fits the street's grain and rhythm. A frequent trap is a plot that looks wide enough for a house until the required separation distances, garden sizes and parking are drawn in and it becomes clear the home would be cramped or the neighbours harmed.

Backland and garden-land development — a house behind the frontage, in a rear garden, or on land reached by a narrow access — faces Ealing's most searching tests. The borough, in common with London policy, is protective of gardens and cautious about backland because of the risk of poor-quality, hidden, poorly-accessed homes and the cumulative erosion of the green, spacious character that gives much of Ealing its quality. A backland scheme has to resolve access (a safe, adequate route for people, vehicles, refuse and emergency services), privacy and overlooking in a tight setting, amenity space, trees and landscaping, and the impact on the homes it sits behind. It is the category where honest feasibility matters most, because a plot can look promising and still be undeliverable once these tests are applied.

Across all three, trees are often decisive in Ealing. The borough's suburban character comes in large part from its mature street and garden trees, many of them protected by Tree Preservation Orders or by conservation-area status, and a new home whose footprint, foundations or access would harm a significant tree faces a real obstacle. A proper arboricultural survey and a design that works around the trees — including foundation solutions that respect root protection areas — is frequently the difference between a consentable and an unconsentable plot. We commission the tree survey and design the scheme around it from the start, rather than discovering the constraint after the layout is fixed.

A new home in Ealing has to meet the nationally described space standards (NDSS) and the additional housing-quality standards in the London Plan. These are not aspirations; they are the design floor for a new dwelling, and a home that falls below them will not gain permission. Getting the layout to meet them comfortably — and, ideally, to exceed them where it makes a better home — is one of the first design tasks on any new build, because the standards effectively fix the minimum size of the home and of every room within it.

The nationally described space standards set a minimum gross internal floor area for a dwelling by the number of bedrooms and the number of occupants (bedspaces), and separate figures for one-, two- and three-storey homes to allow for stairs. The headline single-storey (flat) figures are that a one-bedroom, one-person home must be at least 37 square metres (with a shower room) or 39 square metres (with a bathroom), and a one-bedroom, two-person home at least 50 square metres. A two-bedroom, three-person home is at least 61 square metres and a two-bed four-person at least 70; a three-bedroom, five-person home at least 93 square metres. For houses the figures rise with the number of storeys — a typical three-bedroom, five-person, two-storey house is around 93 square metres and a four-bedroom family house larger again.

The standards also fix minimum room sizes and storage. A single bedroom must be at least 7.5 square metres and at least 2.15 metres wide; a double (or twin) bedroom at least 11.5 square metres. Every home must include a minimum amount of built-in storage, and there is a minimum floor-to-ceiling height of 2.3 metres over at least 75% of the gross internal area of any habitable room. These are the national minimums, and a well-designed new house will usually be more generous, but the drawings have to demonstrate that each figure is met — which is why we annotate room and dwelling areas directly on the plans.

In London the standards go further. The London Plan's housing-quality policy (Policy D6) raises the minimum floor-to-ceiling height for at least 75% of a dwelling's gross internal area to 2.5 metres, expects new homes to be dual-aspect wherever possible (limiting single-aspect homes, and effectively ruling out single-aspect north-facing homes without good reason), and requires private outdoor space — a minimum of 5 square metres for a one- or two-person home, with an extra square metre for each additional occupant. A new house in Ealing therefore has to be designed to the London standard, not just the national one, and the difference — the taller rooms, the dual aspect, the guaranteed private amenity space — genuinely shapes the plan and the section from the outset.

A new build needs a complete structural design — not a beam here and a lintel there, as an extension might, but the whole load path of the building from the roof down to the ground. This is one of the biggest differences between a new dwelling and any alteration project, and it is why the structural engineering has to be integral to the drawings from the earliest stage rather than bolted on afterwards. Crown designs the structure in-house alongside the architecture, so the home is structurally coherent by design and the drawings carry a real, calculated frame rather than a hopeful arrangement of walls.

It starts underground, with the foundations, and the foundations start with the ground. The right foundation for a new home in Ealing depends entirely on the ground conditions on the specific plot — the soil type, its bearing capacity, the water table, and, critically in this part of London, the presence of clay soils and nearby trees. Much of Ealing sits on London Clay, a shrinkable soil that moves with moisture, and where there are trees close to the building (or trees recently removed) the foundations often have to go deeper, or be designed as reinforced or piled foundations, to reach stable ground and to sit within the influence of the trees' roots without heave or subsidence. A ground investigation to establish the soil and inform the foundation design is one of the first things a serious new build needs.

Above ground, the structural design sets out the whole frame: the load-bearing walls or frame (masonry, timber frame, steel or a hybrid), the floor structures (beam-and-block, timber joists, or engineered systems), any steel beams needed over openings or to create open-plan spaces, the lateral stability of the building against wind, and the roof structure. Each element is sized and calculated to carry the loads of a modern home safely, and the whole is coordinated with the architecture so that the structure supports the spaces the design wants and the services can be routed through it. On a new build there is no existing structure to lean on, so every load has a designed path to the ground.

The structural design also has to account for the specifics of the plot and the neighbours. Where a new home is built close to an existing building — common on infill and replacement plots — the foundations and any excavation have to be designed and sequenced so they do not undermine the neighbour, and the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 usually applies (covered below). Where the site slopes, has made ground, or has been previously developed, the ground conditions and possible contamination shape the design. All of this is why the structure cannot be an afterthought: it is designed with the architecture and the site from the very first drawings.

A new dwelling needs a complete set of building services — the mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems that make a house a home — and, unlike an extension that plugs into an existing house, a new build has to provide all of them from scratch. That means a heating and hot-water system, a ventilation strategy, a full electrical installation, water supply, and both foul and surface-water drainage, all designed and coordinated with the architecture and the structure so they fit within the building and comply with the Building Regulations. On a new home the services are a major design exercise, not a fit-out detail.

Heating and hot water are where new-build design has changed most, driven by Part L of the Building Regulations and the emerging Future Homes Standard. New homes are moving decisively away from gas boilers towards low-carbon heating — principally air-source heat pumps — because the carbon targets a new home must meet can no longer be achieved with a conventional gas boiler. That shift affects the whole design: a heat pump needs external space and a hot-water cylinder, works best with a well-insulated, airtight building and larger radiators or underfloor heating, and changes the electrical demand of the home. Designing for it from the start, rather than trying to add it late, is essential.

Ventilation is the counterpart to that airtightness. As new homes are built tighter to save energy, they need a designed ventilation strategy under Part F of the Building Regulations to keep the air fresh and to manage moisture — increasingly using continuous mechanical extract ventilation (MEV) or mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR), which recovers warmth from the outgoing stale air. Ventilation, heating and insulation are a single system on a modern new build: get the balance wrong and you get either a cold, draughty home or a warm, damp one. We design them together.

The electrical, water and drainage design completes the package. A new home needs a full electrical design for lighting, power, and increasingly for electric heating and vehicle charging; a water supply and internal plumbing; and a drainage design for both foul waste and surface water. Drainage is a significant piece of a new build — covered in its own section below — because a new dwelling creates new hard surfaces and new demand on the drainage network, and Ealing (like all London boroughs) expects sustainable drainage to manage the surface water. All of these services are coordinated with the structure and the layout so they can actually be installed as drawn.

Energy performance is one of the most heavily regulated aspects of a new home, and it is only getting more demanding. Every new dwelling in England must comply with Part L of the Building Regulations (the conservation of fuel and power), and compliance is demonstrated through an energy calculation — historically the Standard Assessment Procedure, or SAP — that models the home's fabric, heating, hot water, ventilation and any renewables and checks that its predicted carbon emissions and energy use are within the targets. On a new build this calculation is not a box-tick at the end; it should drive the design of the fabric and the services from the start, because it is far cheaper to design an efficient home than to retro-fit performance into an inefficient one.

The current Part L standards, which came into force in 2021, already require new homes to produce substantially lower carbon emissions than the previous generation — an uplift of around 30% — through better insulation, better airtightness, low-carbon heating and, often, renewables such as solar panels. In practice this means a new Ealing home has to be designed with a high-performance building envelope: well-insulated walls, floors and roof, good airtightness, reduced thermal bridging at junctions, and high-performance glazing. These are fabric decisions that have to be made on the drawings, not left to the builder to interpret.

The bigger change is the Future Homes Standard, which raises the bar much higher. It is designed to make new homes produce around 75–80% fewer carbon emissions than under the previous 2013 standards, and it is set at a level that effectively rules out conventional gas boilers in favour of low-carbon heating such as heat pumps. The transition to the Future Homes Standard is underway, with a new methodology and a period for the industry to move from 'Future Homes ready' designs to full compliance; a new home being designed now in Ealing should be designed with the direction of travel firmly in mind, so it is not obsolete on the day it completes and does not need expensive changes partway through.

For an Ealing new build there is a London dimension too. The London Plan sets its own energy hierarchy and, for major schemes, a target of net-zero-carbon development and a preference for reducing energy demand first, then supplying efficiently, then using clean energy — with a carbon offset payment where on-site zero carbon cannot be achieved. A single self-build home is not usually caught by the full major-development energy requirements, but the direction is unmistakable: new homes in London are expected to be low-energy and low-carbon, and the fabric, heating and ventilation have to be designed together to get there. We design the energy strategy into the scheme from feasibility, so Part L and the Future Homes Standard are met by the design rather than fought at the end.

A new dwelling creates new demand on the drainage system in two ways — foul water from the home's toilets, kitchen and bathrooms, and surface water running off its new roof, driveway and hard surfaces — and both have to be designed and, on a new build, both are scrutinised. Foul drainage has to connect properly to the public sewer (or, rarely, to a designed private system), with the falls, pipe sizes and connections all worked out. Surface-water drainage is where the greater attention now falls, because uncontrolled run-off from new development contributes to flooding, and London policy is firmly in favour of managing it sustainably at source.

Sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) are the modern approach, and they are expected on new homes in Ealing. Rather than piping every drop of rainwater straight into the sewer, SuDS slow, store and where possible soak away surface water close to where it falls — through permeable paving, soakaways, rainwater harvesting, green roofs, water butts and small storage or attenuation features — so that the rate and volume of run-off leaving the site is controlled. The London Plan sets out a drainage hierarchy that pushes designers to manage water at the top of the hierarchy (reuse and infiltration) before resorting to a controlled discharge to the sewer, and a new-build drainage strategy has to work down that hierarchy and justify where it lands.

Flood risk is the other side of the water question, and it matters in parts of Ealing. The borough is crossed by the River Brent, the Grand Union Canal and their tributaries, and land near them can fall within a higher flood-risk zone. A new home on such a plot faces additional scrutiny — a site-specific flood-risk assessment, a sequential approach to the layout, finished floor levels set above the flood level, and sometimes flood-resilient construction — and a new dwelling with habitable rooms at ground level in a flood zone is a particularly sensitive proposition. Establishing the plot's flood zone and drainage constraints at feasibility is essential, because they can shape the whole design or, occasionally, rule out a plot.

On the drawings, the drainage and SuDS design has to be shown and coordinated with the levels, the landscaping and the structure — the soakaway clear of foundations and trees, the attenuation sized for the run-off, the permeable surfaces detailed, the connections and falls set out. A drainage strategy that is an afterthought tends to clash with everything else on a tight plot; designed in from the start, it becomes part of a coherent scheme. We prepare the drainage and SuDS design as part of the coordinated package, with a flood-risk assessment where the site requires one.

Many Ealing new builds — replacement dwellings especially — begin with demolition, and demolition is a regulated process in its own right. Demolishing a building generally requires a prior notification to Building Control, and where the building is in a conservation area or is listed, or where a building of certain sizes is involved, additional planning consents or notifications can apply. Demolition also has to be carried out safely, with proper protection for neighbours and the highway, and with attention to asbestos and waste. We coordinate the demolition requirements with the planning and construction programme so the site is cleared lawfully and the new build can start cleanly.

The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is a near-constant feature of new builds on tight urban plots, and it is separate from planning and Building Regulations. Where the new home shares a wall with a neighbour, is built up to or astride the boundary line, or involves excavation for foundations within three metres (or in some cases six metres) of a neighbouring building and to a lower depth than the neighbour's foundations, the Act requires formal notice to the affected owners and, usually, a party wall award agreed through surveyors before that work can start. On infill and replacement plots close to neighbours, the Act almost always applies, and the notices have to be served in good time because they carry statutory notice periods that can hold up a start on site if left late.

The plot itself brings its own constraints that the drawings and programme have to respect. Access for construction — getting materials and machinery onto a backland or tightly bounded site — can be a genuine design driver, not just a logistical afterthought. Existing services crossing the site (water, gas, electricity, drains, and sometimes a sewer with a build-over agreement required from the water company) have to be located and dealt with. Trees, levels, boundaries and rights of way all shape what can be built where. A good new-build design starts by understanding these constraints, not by drawing an ideal house and then discovering it cannot be delivered.

We manage these site and neighbour issues as part of the overall service, because on a new build they are not peripheral — a party wall dispute, an unexpected sewer under the footprint, or a demolition that was not properly notified can each stop a project dead. By identifying them at feasibility and designing and programming around them, we keep the route from a cleared plot to a finished home as smooth as a real construction project allows.

One cost that catches out new-build clients more than any other is the Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) — a charge on new floorspace that funds the infrastructure needed to support development. CIL is charged per square metre of net additional internal floorspace, so a new dwelling is squarely within its scope, and on a new home it can be a significant sum that has to be budgeted from the start. There are two layers of CIL that can apply to an Ealing new build: the Mayor of London's CIL, and Ealing's own borough CIL.

Ealing introduced its own borough Community Infrastructure Levy that applies to development granted planning permission on or after 1 March 2026. The residential rates are set by location within the borough: new homes in central Ealing are charged at £300 per square metre, while new homes elsewhere in the borough are charged at £150 per square metre, and purpose-built student housing and co-living (shared living) are charged at £350 per square metre. The money raised is intended to help fund the schools, transport, open space and other infrastructure the borough's growth requires. This is a new and material cost for anyone building in Ealing from March 2026 onwards, and it has to be factored into a scheme's budget at feasibility.

On top of the borough CIL, the Mayor of London's CIL applies across Greater London to help fund strategic infrastructure (historically Crossrail / the Elizabeth line and now other projects), charged per square metre of new floorspace at a rate that varies by borough band. Ealing falls within a Mayoral CIL charging band, so a new home is liable for the Mayoral CIL as well as, from March 2026, the borough CIL. The exact figures depend on the current charging schedules in force when the scheme is permitted, which is why we calculate the likely CIL for your specific scheme rather than quoting a generic number.

Crucially, there are reliefs and exemptions that can reduce or remove CIL, and they matter enormously to individual home-builders. A self-build exemption is available for someone building their own home to live in, and there are reliefs for extending your own home, for affordable housing, and for development by charities — but these reliefs are not automatic. They have to be claimed correctly, in the right form and at the right time in the process (typically before development begins), or they are lost and the full charge becomes payable. Getting the CIL forms and the exemption claim right is part of the service, because a missed self-build exemption on a new home is one of the most expensive administrative errors a builder can make.

Beyond CIL, larger new-build schemes can attract planning obligations under Section 106 of the Town and Country Planning Act — legally binding agreements between the developer and the council that secure contributions or provisions the development needs to make it acceptable. These are distinct from CIL: CIL is a standard, tariff-based charge on floorspace, while a Section 106 agreement deals with site-specific matters that CIL does not cover. On a single new house a Section 106 agreement is uncommon, but on a development of several homes it can come into play.

The most significant Section 106 matter on a residential development is affordable housing. Ealing's emerging Local Plan strengthens its affordable-housing requirements, with a threshold above which a scheme is expected to provide affordable homes and a 'fast-track' route for schemes that provide 40% affordable housing without a detailed viability review. A developer building above the relevant threshold will need to address affordable housing either by providing units on site or, where genuinely justified, through a payment, and the viability of the whole scheme has to accommodate that from the start. A self-build home for the owner's own occupation is not caught, but anyone building at scale must factor it in.

Section 106 agreements can also secure other site-specific requirements — highways works, contributions to local infrastructure, car-free or car-capped commitments, or the management of shared areas on a small development. Where these apply, the agreement has to be negotiated and completed before permission is issued, which can add time to the process, so it is best identified early. On most single new homes none of this arises, and CIL is the only financial obligation.

Almost every new-build permission, by contrast, comes with planning conditions — requirements that have to be satisfied before, during or after construction. Typical conditions require the approval of materials, landscaping and boundary treatments, the implementation of the drainage and tree-protection schemes, the provision of parking, cycle and refuse storage, and compliance with the energy and sustainability commitments. Many are 'pre-commencement' conditions that must be discharged before work can start, so they have to be programmed in. We flag the conditions when the decision arrives and prepare the discharge submissions so the build is not held up by unmet conditions.

The heart of a new-build service is the drawing set, and on a new dwelling it runs across three distinct packages, produced in sequence and coordinated so that each builds on the last. Understanding what each package is, who it is for and what it contains is the best way to understand why a new build cannot be drawn once at planning stage and then simply handed to a builder. Each package is described in its own detail below, but the principle is that the same coordinated team produces all three, so nothing is lost between stages.

The planning package is the first, prepared to win full planning permission from Ealing. It typically includes an accurate measured survey of the existing site (and any building to be demolished), a location plan and block plan, existing and proposed site plans showing the new home in its plot, and proposed floor plans, elevations and sections showing the size, layout and appearance of the new dwelling. Room and dwelling areas are annotated so the council can check them against the space standards, and the drawings are supported by the documents the application needs — a design and access statement, a planning statement, and specialist reports (arboricultural, heritage, flood risk, drainage, energy, transport) where the site demands them. The planning package is about design, appearance and impact.

The building regulations package is the second, prepared once permission is granted (or, sometimes, in parallel) to satisfy Building Control that the home will be safe and compliant. It takes the approved design and adds the technical substance the planning drawings deliberately leave open: construction build-ups for walls, floors and roof; insulation and U-values for Part L; the structural design and calculations for the foundations and frame; the fire strategy and escape provisions for Part B; sound insulation for Part E; ventilation for Part F; drainage design; and the electrical and services layouts. The building regulations package is about performance and safety.

The construction package is the third, and it is what the builder actually builds from. It is the most detailed of all, translating the approved and Building-Control-compliant design into buildable, dimensioned, buildable information: setting-out and dimension drawings, detailed sections through every important junction, specifications for materials and workmanship, structural details, and the coordinated services and drainage layouts. A good construction package lets a builder price the job accurately and build it correctly with a minimum of on-site guesswork, which is exactly what protects a new-build budget and programme. We prepare all three packages as one coordinated set, so the home you consent is the home you build.

The planning drawings are the drawings that win permission, and their job is to show Ealing's case officer exactly what is proposed, where it sits, what it looks like and how it responds to its surroundings — clearly enough that the officer can assess it against every relevant policy and recommend approval without having to fill in gaps. On a new dwelling the planning set has to establish both the principle (a new home is acceptable here) and the particulars (this home, this size, this design, in this position).

The core of the set is an accurate survey and a suite of existing and proposed drawings. We begin with a measured survey of the site — its boundaries, levels, existing buildings, trees and neighbouring context — because a new build is judged in relation to its plot and its neighbours, and an inaccurate base plan undermines everything drawn on it. From the survey we prepare existing site plans and, where a building is to be demolished, its existing plans and elevations, so the council can see the starting point. We then prepare the proposed drawings: a site plan showing the new home in its plot with its garden, access and parking; floor plans of the new dwelling; elevations showing every face of the building and its materials; and sections showing heights, levels and roof form.

Every drawing in the planning set is prepared to answer a policy. The proposed floor plans carry annotated room and dwelling areas so the council can check them against the nationally described space standards and the London Plan without scaling off the drawing. The elevations show the materials, proportions and detailing that make the design case and demonstrate a good fit with the street. The site plan shows separation distances to neighbours, private amenity space, parking and cycle and refuse storage. The sections show that the home meets the floor-to-ceiling heights and sits appropriately in its levels. A planning set that anticipates and answers each policy is materially more likely to be approved than one the officer has to interrogate.

Alongside the drawings, the planning application carries the supporting documents the scheme needs. A design and access statement explains the thinking behind the design and how it responds to context; a planning statement addresses the Local Plan and London Plan policies by name; and specialist reports are added where the site requires them — an arboricultural survey and impact assessment where trees are affected, a heritage statement in or near a conservation area or affecting a listed building, a flood-risk assessment and drainage strategy where the site warrants it, an energy statement, and a transport statement or parking assessment where access is an issue. We assemble a complete, internally consistent application so that the drawings and the documents tell one coherent story.

Once planning permission is granted, a new home needs Building Regulations approval before construction — a completely separate consent from the planning permission, dealing not with how the home looks or where it sits but with whether it is safe, healthy, warm and structurally sound. The Building Regulations are a set of national standards organised into parts (structure, fire safety, ventilation, drainage, energy, sound, accessibility and more), and a new dwelling has to satisfy all the relevant parts. The building regulations drawings are how that compliance is demonstrated and, in due course, checked on site.

There are two ways to obtain Building Control approval — a full plans application, where the detailed drawings and calculations are submitted and formally checked and approved before work starts, or a building notice, a lighter-touch route more suited to simple work. For a new dwelling we strongly favour the full plans route, because it gives certainty: the design is checked and approved on paper before anyone builds, so problems are found on the drawing board rather than on site where they are expensive to fix. The building control body can be the local authority's own service or an approved private inspector; either way the standards are the same.

The building regulations drawings take the approved planning design and add the technical detail. That includes the full structural design — the foundation design informed by the ground investigation, the frame, the floors, the roof, and the supporting structural calculations; the fire strategy for Part B, with escape routes, protected stairs, fire-resisting construction and alarm provision; the thermal design for Part L, with insulation, U-values, airtightness and the SAP/energy calculation; the ventilation design for Part F; the sound design for Part E; the drainage design; and the electrical, water and services layouts. Each part of the Regulations is addressed on the drawings and in the accompanying calculations and specifications.

Getting the building regulations package right matters for more than compliance. Because we design the structure, fire strategy, energy and services in-house alongside the architecture, the building regulations design is a natural development of the planning design rather than a redesign — the home that gained permission is the home that gets Building Control approval, without the value-engineering surprises that arise when planning and technical design are done by separate hands. And because the building regulations drawings feed directly into the construction package, the transition from approval to a builder on site is seamless.

The construction drawings are the final and most detailed package, and they are what a builder actually uses to price and build the home. Where the planning drawings answer 'what and where' and the building regulations drawings answer 'is it compliant', the construction drawings answer 'exactly how is it built' — down to the setting-out dimensions, the junction details, the material specifications and the coordination of every trade. A new build with a proper construction package is a new build that can be priced accurately, built correctly and delivered without the constant stream of on-site queries and improvised decisions that drive up cost and cause defects.

A construction package typically includes fully dimensioned and setting-out drawings, so the builder can lay out the foundations, walls and openings precisely; detailed sections and large-scale details through the critical junctions — eaves, verges, thresholds, window and door reveals, wall-to-floor and wall-to-roof junctions, and any tricky interfaces — where poor detailing causes cold bridges, leaks and defects; a written or drawn specification setting out the materials and standards of workmanship; the coordinated structural details; and the services and drainage layouts showing where everything runs. The package is prepared to be internally consistent and coordinated, so the architecture, structure and services agree with one another.

The value of a construction package is measured directly in money and time on site. A builder pricing a job from a full construction set can give a firm, comparable price because there is little left to interpret; a builder pricing from planning drawings alone has to guess at the specification and the details, which means either an inflated allowance or a low price that turns into a stream of extras once the gaps become apparent. And on site, a coordinated set means the builder, the structural engineer and the services installer are all working from the same information, which is faster, cheaper and far less prone to the clashes and reworks that plague poorly-documented new builds.

This is where the single-team approach pays off most obviously. Because the same office produced the planning, the building regulations and the construction drawings, and designed the structure and services alongside the architecture throughout, the construction package is a true, coordinated development of the consented and approved design — not a set of drawings from one firm that a builder then has to reconcile with an engineer's calculations from another. On a new home, that coordination is the difference between a build that runs to plan and one that lurches from surprise to surprise.

It helps to see how the three drawing packages fit into the overall journey of a new home, which the profession describes in a series of work stages from first idea to finished building. The journey begins with feasibility and briefing: we survey the site, establish its planning designations, flood zone, trees and constraints, understand your brief and budget, and give you an honest appraisal of what the plot can support under Ealing's policies. On many new builds this is also where a pre-application enquiry to the council and a ground investigation are commissioned, so the design starts from a realistic understanding of both the policy and the ground.

From feasibility we move into concept and developed design — turning the brief and the site analysis into a designed home, developed with you until the layout, appearance and character are right and the scheme meets the space, energy and amenity standards. This is where the architecture, structure and services are developed together, so the design is coordinated and buildable from the outset. When the design is settled, we prepare and submit the planning application (the first drawing package) and manage it through Ealing's validation and determination to a decision.

Once permission is granted, the project moves into technical design: the building regulations package and then the construction package (the second and third drawing packages), together with the discharge of any pre-commencement planning conditions and the CIL and self-build exemption formalities. This is the stage that turns a planning permission into a set of information a builder can price and build from, and it is the stage most often skimped on by those who treat the planning drawing as the finished product — which is precisely why so many self-build and small-developer projects run over budget.

Finally the project goes to construction. With a full, coordinated drawing set the home can be tendered to builders for a firm price, and built with the design team available to answer queries, inspect key stages and administer the contract if you wish. Building Control inspects the work at key stages and issues a completion certificate when the home is finished and compliant. The result of running the whole journey with one coordinated team is a home that was designed once, consented, approved and built as a single continuous project — which is faster, cheaper and far less stressful than assembling it from separate, uncoordinated parts.

The formal process starts with feasibility and, usually, an optional pre-application enquiry to Ealing. We survey the site, confirm its planning history and designations, check it against the borough's conservation areas, listed buildings, Tree Preservation Orders and flood zones, and test what a new home on the plot could realistically be. Where the principle of a new dwelling is the key question — on infill, backland and garden-land plots especially — a pre-application enquiry gives a written steer from the council before you invest in a full application, and we advise on whether it is worth using for your plot.

We then prepare the full planning application — the planning drawing package and the supporting statements and specialist reports the scheme needs — and submit it to Ealing through the Planning Portal. The council validates the application, publicises it (neighbour notification and site notices), consults its internal specialists and external bodies, and assigns a case officer. A full application for a new dwelling runs against an eight-week statutory target from validation (or thirteen weeks for a major development of ten or more homes), though schemes that need negotiation, a Section 106 agreement, or a committee decision can take longer. We manage the application throughout — responding to the case officer, providing further information, and negotiating amendments where that will secure approval.

Once permission is granted, attention turns to Building Control and to discharging the planning conditions. We prepare the building regulations package and submit it as a full plans application to the chosen building control body, discharge the pre-commencement planning conditions (materials, drainage, tree protection and so on), and complete the CIL formalities including any self-build exemption claim — which must be made before work begins. Only when the pre-commencement conditions are discharged and the CIL commencement notice is submitted can construction lawfully start, which is why this stage has to be programmed deliberately rather than rushed.

Construction then proceeds with Building Control inspecting at key stages — foundations, drainage, damp-proofing, structure, insulation and completion — and issuing a completion certificate at the end. Throughout, we keep the drawings, the consent, the conditions and the Building Control sign-off aligned, so the home that is built is the home that was consented and approved. Managing the whole route with one team, from the first survey to the completion certificate, is what turns the maze of separate approvals into a single, navigable project.

The cost of a new build in Ealing has several distinct components, and it helps to see them separately. There is our design fee — for the architecture, the structural design, the services design and the three drawing packages — which we scope to your specific project and quote as a clear, staged fee before work begins. There are the statutory and third-party costs: the council's planning application fee, the Building Control fee, and the fees for the specialist reports the site needs (survey, ground investigation, arboricultural, flood risk, energy and so on). There is CIL, which on a new home in Ealing is a real cost that must be budgeted (subject to any self-build exemption). And there is the build cost itself, paid to the contractor.

The council's planning application fee for a new dwelling is set nationally and payable to Ealing on submission, with a per-dwelling fee that increases for larger schemes; the Building Control fee is separate and depends on the size of the home and the route chosen. Pre-application advice, where used, carries its own fee but can reduce the risk of a refused application. We set out all of these costs at the start so you can budget the whole project, not just the drawings, from day one.

On timescales, feasibility and design typically take a few weeks to a couple of months depending on the complexity of the home and how much design development you want. A full planning application then runs against the eight-week target from validation (thirteen weeks for a major scheme), though realistically a new dwelling often takes a little longer once consultation and any negotiation are allowed for; optional pre-application advice adds a few weeks up front but can save far more later. The building regulations and construction packages are prepared after (or alongside) permission, and the build itself depends on the size and complexity of the home. We give you a realistic programme for your specific project at the outset.

The most important thing to understand about new-build costs is where money is actually lost — and it is almost never on good design and a complete drawing set. It is lost on refused applications, on plots bought on the assumption that a new home is achievable when it is not, on planning permissions that cannot be built as drawn, and above all on new builds that go to site with only planning-level drawings and then bleed money through unpriced work, on-site improvisation and reworks. A thorough, coordinated drawing set is the single most cost-effective investment on a new home, because it is what makes the build predictable.

Understanding why new-build applications fail is the best way to make sure yours does not, and on a new dwelling in Ealing the refusal reasons cluster around a handful of familiar themes. The most common is that the proposal is simply too big or too dominant for its plot and its context — a replacement dwelling that dwarfs its neighbours, an infill house that leaves inadequate spacing, or a scheme whose scale, height or bulk harms the character of the street. Ealing's suburbs have a prevailing grain and rhythm, and a new home that ignores it invites refusal.

The second theme is harm to neighbours' amenity: a new home positioned so that it overlooks neighbouring gardens or windows, blocks their daylight or sunlight, or looms over their outlook. On tight infill and backland plots these impacts are easy to create and fatal to an application, and they have to be designed out — through careful positioning, window design, separation distances and heights — and demonstrated on the drawings. A scheme that cannot show acceptable relationships with its neighbours will not be approved.

The third theme is poor-quality accommodation in the new home itself: rooms or a dwelling below the space standards, inadequate daylight, single-aspect layouts where dual aspect is expected, or a lack of proper private amenity space. Ealing (and the London Plan) will not approve a new home that fails its own occupants, so the internal quality has to meet the standards on the drawings. The fourth theme, especially on backland and garden-land plots, is inadequate access, the loss of protected trees, drainage or flood-risk problems, or the harm of 'garden-grabbing' — the erosion of the spacious, green character the borough values.

Our approach is to anticipate every one of these reasons and design it out before the application is submitted. We test the scale against the context, the relationships against the neighbours, the internal layout against the space and light standards, and the access, trees and drainage against the site's constraints — and we are honest at feasibility if a plot cannot carry a home to Ealing's standards. There is no value in submitting a new-build application designed to fail; far better to know early and design a scheme that is built to pass.

To make the process concrete, consider a common Ealing scenario: a family buys a tired inter-war bungalow on a decent plot in a suburban street — say in Northolt, Greenford or Hanwell — and wants to demolish it and build a new, larger, energy-efficient family house in its place. It is exactly the kind of replacement-dwelling project the borough's new-build market is built on, and exactly the kind where getting the drawings right across all three stages decides whether it succeeds.

At feasibility, we survey the plot, confirm it is not in a conservation area and is not listed, check it for Tree Preservation Orders and its flood zone, and establish the prevailing scale and character of the street. The plot sits on London Clay with a mature oak in a neighbour's garden nearby, so we commission a ground investigation and an arboricultural survey early, because both will shape the foundations and the footprint. We then design a replacement house that is a proportionate step up from the bungalow — a two-storey home that respects the height, ridge line and building line of its neighbours rather than towering over them — with a layout that comfortably exceeds the space standards, dual-aspect rooms, 2.5-metre ceilings and proper private garden amenity space.

The structural and services design is developed alongside the architecture. Because of the clay and the nearby oak, the foundations are designed as deep or reinforced foundations that respect the tree's root protection area; the home is designed with a high-performance, airtight, well-insulated envelope and an air-source heat pump with mechanical ventilation, so it meets Part L and is ready for the Future Homes Standard; and a SuDS drainage strategy with permeable paving and a soakaway (clear of the foundations and the tree) manages the surface water. All of this is coordinated on the drawings from the start, so the planning design is genuinely buildable.

On the application side, we prepare the planning package — the survey, the existing and demolition drawings, and the proposed site plan, floor plans, elevations and sections with every room and dwelling area annotated — plus a design and access statement, an arboricultural report, and a drainage and energy statement. Submitted to Ealing against the eight-week target, the application goes in as a scheme the case officer can approve rather than refuse, because the scale fits the street, the neighbours are respected, and the home meets every standard. Once permission is granted, the same coordinated team prepares the building regulations and construction packages, discharges the conditions, claims the self-build CIL exemption, and carries the project to a builder on site. That is the difference between a new home designed to succeed and one simply hoped through.

Crown Architecture designs and draws new homes across Ealing and the surrounding boroughs, and we do it as a single coordinated service: the architecture, the structural and civil design, and the building services all under one roof. On a new build that matters more than on any other kind of project, because a new dwelling is a whole building — foundations, frame, envelope, services, drainage and finishes — and every one of those elements is interdependent. Design them separately, through an architect here and an engineer there, and they clash; design them together, and the home is coherent, buildable and efficient from the first drawing.

We prepare the complete drawing set — planning, building regulations and construction — so your new home is drawn once, drawn properly, and carried seamlessly from a planning application through Building Control to a builder on site. This is where most new-build trouble is avoided: there is no cliff-edge at the end of the planning stage, no redesign when the engineer or Building Control gets involved, and no builder left to 'work it out on site'. The home that gains permission is the home that is approved and built, because the same team produced every stage of the information.

We know the Ealing picture: the full-permission route a new dwelling has to take, the borough's design-led approach to density, its tall-buildings guidance, its caution about backland and garden-land development, its protected trees and conservation areas, and its new CIL from March 2026 — as well as the national and London standards for space, energy, drainage and fire that every new home must meet. We use that knowledge to give you honest advice at feasibility about what your plot can carry, and to design an application built to pass rather than submitted in hope.

Just as importantly, we are straightforward to work with. We appraise the plot and the constraints before anything else, we tell you honestly what is achievable and by which route, we quote a clear, staged fee, and we prepare a coordinated, self-consistent set of drawings and documents that a case officer can approve and a builder can price with confidence. Then we stay with the project — managing the application through Ealing's determination, discharging the conditions, handling the CIL and self-build exemption, and preparing the technical information the build needs — so you have a single, accountable point of contact from the first survey to the completion certificate.

If you are considering a new home in Ealing — a replacement dwelling, an infill house, a backland or garden plot, or a small development, anywhere in Ealing, Acton, Southall, Hanwell, Greenford, Northolt or Perivale — send us the address and what you have in mind, and we will tell you honestly what the plot can support and prepare the full drawing set to deliver it.