Small Residential Development Plans in Greenwich

In planning terms, developments are sorted by size, and the dividing line that matters most is between 'minor' and 'major' development. A major residential development is one of ten or more new homes, or a site of 0.5 hectares or more where the number of homes is not yet known. Anything below that — one to nine new dwellings on a site under half a hectare — is a minor development, and it is this band that most people mean by a 'small residential development'. The distinction is not just administrative: it changes the planning fees, the statutory decision period, the consultation requirements and, crucially, which affordable-housing and infrastructure obligations apply.

A small residential development can take many forms. It might be a single new house in a gap between two others (an infill plot); two, three or four houses on a large back garden or a former side garden (backland or garden-land development); a small terrace or a pair of semi-detached houses on a cleared site; a modest block of flats of six or eight units on a corner plot or a redundant commercial site; or the replacement of one dwelling with several. What unites them is that they create new, self-contained homes — Use Class C3 dwellinghouses — where there were none, or fewer, before.

Because they create new dwellings, these schemes are what planners call 'operational development' combined, usually, with a change or intensification of use. That is the key legal point: erecting a new building is development that needs planning permission in its own right, and there is no permitted development right that lets you simply build a new house or block of flats on a plot. The permitted development regime is largely about extending or altering existing buildings, and about changing the use of existing buildings; it does not hand you the right to put up fresh homes from the ground. Every genuine new dwelling in Greenwich is therefore a planning application.

The other thing that defines small development is that it is held to essentially the same quality standards as a large scheme, without the economies of scale. A nine-home scheme has to meet the same space standard, the same design expectations, the same daylight and amenity tests and much of the same technical rigour as a ninety-home scheme — it simply spreads the cost of getting there over far fewer units. That is exactly why good, efficient design matters so much on small sites: the margin for wasted space or an unnecessary refusal is far smaller.

Small residential development is the natural territory of the individual owner, the small builder and the local developer, and Greenwich has a long tradition of all three. The most common client is someone who owns a plot with untapped potential — a house on a double-width plot, a large garden that could take a home at the bottom, a corner site, a lock-up or a small commercial building — and who realises that the land is worth more with homes on it than without. For these owners, a well-designed small scheme can release significant value from land they already hold.

The second group is the small and medium-sized housebuilder or developer who assembles sites of this scale across south-east London. For them, small sites are the bread and butter of the business: quick enough to build, small enough to fund without a huge scheme's overheads, and — thanks to the London Plan's presumption in favour of small housing developments — supported in principle by policy. The challenge for these clients is throughput: getting good schemes designed and consented efficiently, and avoiding the refusals and appeals that tie up capital.

A third group is the family or self-builder who wants to build one or two homes — perhaps a new home for themselves and one to sell, or a home each for two generations of a family — on land they own or have found. Greenwich's mix of generous interwar plots in Eltham and Kidbrooke, tight Victorian terraces in Greenwich and Charlton, and pockets of surplus land across the borough throws up these opportunities regularly, and the planning issues are the same whether the client is a developer or a family.

Whoever the client, the ambition is the same: to get the maximum number of good-quality, policy-compliant homes onto the site that the plot, the neighbours and the borough's policies will actually support — and to get them consented and built without avoidable cost or delay. That is a design problem as much as a planning one, and it is precisely the problem this service is built to solve.

For any scheme that creates one or more genuinely new dwellings, the answer is an unambiguous yes: you need full planning permission. Building a new house, a pair of houses, a small terrace or a block of flats is 'operational development' — the erection of a building — and there is no permitted development right that authorises it. This is the single most important thing to understand, because owners often assume that the same permitted development rules that let them extend a house also let them build new ones. They do not.

Permitted development rights are, broadly, about existing buildings. They cover extensions, loft conversions and outbuildings on existing houses; certain changes of use of existing buildings (such as the Class MA right that turns shops and offices into homes); and the upward extension of some existing blocks. None of them lets you clear a plot and put up new homes, or build a house on a garden, or erect a small block on a corner site. Those are new buildings, and new buildings creating new dwellings need a full planning application decided on their planning merits.

There is one narrow and much-misunderstood exception worth naming so it can be set aside: certain permitted development rights allow limited upward extensions to construct new flats on top of existing blocks of flats or detached commercial and mixed-use buildings, subject to prior approval and tight conditions on height, design and amenity. These are highly constrained, apply only to specific existing building types, and are not a route to a genuine ground-up small development. For the overwhelming majority of small residential schemes — infill, backland, garden plots, cleared sites, redundant commercial units being redeveloped — you should assume a full planning application is required.

Being a full application is, in truth, an advantage. It means the scheme is judged on its design and its planning merits rather than squeezed into a rigid, one-size-fits-all prior-approval box, which gives a well-designed proposal room to make its case. It also means you can shape the scheme — the number, size and mix of homes, the layout, the amenity space — to what the site and the policies genuinely support, rather than to the arbitrary limits a permitted development route would impose. The task is to use that freedom well, which is where the design and the planning case earn their keep.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich is one of the most historically significant places in Britain, and understanding it is the starting point for any development here. At its heart is Maritime Greenwich, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1997: the Old Royal Naval College, the baroque masterpiece begun by Sir Christopher Wren on the site of the old Greenwich Palace where Henry VIII and Elizabeth I were born; the Queen's House by Inigo Jones, completed in the 1630s and the first consciously classical building in England; the National Maritime Museum; the Royal Observatory; and Greenwich Park rising behind them. It is the place that set the world's clock — in 1884 the Greenwich Meridian was adopted as the Prime Meridian, zero degrees longitude, and Greenwich Mean Time became the global standard.

Down at the riverside sits the Cutty Sark, the last surviving tea clipper, launched in 1869 and now preserved in dry dock; Greenwich Market, with its heritage covered market; and the pedestrian foot tunnel beneath the Thames to the Isle of Dogs. But the borough is far larger than the historic town. The Royal Borough of Greenwich was formed in 1965 from the old metropolitan boroughs of Greenwich and Woolwich, and it was granted royal borough status on 3 February 2012 — the fourth in the country — to mark the Diamond Jubilee and in recognition of its royal history, the Prime Meridian and its World Heritage status. It runs along the south bank of the Thames from Deptford in the west to Thamesmead in the east.

That breadth is exactly what makes the borough such fertile ground for small residential development, because it contains an unusually wide range of residential grain. There are the tight Victorian and Georgian terraces of Greenwich, Charlton and Woolwich; the leafy interwar suburbs of Eltham, Kidbrooke and Blackheath with their generous plots and long gardens; the great post-war and later estates; and the riverside and eastern districts — the Peninsula, Charlton Riverside, the Royal Arsenal, Thamesmead and Abbey Wood — where former industrial and military land has been turned into new neighbourhoods. Each of these contexts throws up different small-site opportunities and different design challenges.

The borough has also seen a step-change in accessibility. The arrival of the Elizabeth line at Woolwich and Abbey Wood, alongside the DLR at Greenwich and Woolwich Arsenal, the Jubilee line at North Greenwich, and extensive rail links, has transformed public-transport connectivity across the east of the borough. Higher public-transport accessibility (measured as PTAL) strengthens the case for higher-density housing and lower parking, which directly affects how many homes a small site can support — a point that runs right through the London Plan's design-led approach to density.

For a small development, this context is not just colour; it is planning-relevant at every turn. Proximity to the Maritime Greenwich World Heritage Site or its buffer zone, to any of the borough's conservation areas, or to its listed buildings brings additional heritage tests. The character of the immediate street — its plot widths, building lines, roof forms, materials and density — sets the design parameters a small scheme must respond to. Knowing exactly where your site sits in this varied borough, and what constraints and opportunities that location carries, is the foundation of a credible scheme.

Small residential development is not a new phenomenon in Greenwich; it is how much of the borough was built in the first place. The Victorian and Edwardian terraces that fill Greenwich, Charlton, Woolwich and Plumstead were largely put up plot by plot and street by street by small builders responding to the demand created by the docks, the Royal Arsenal and the railways — the original small-site development, delivered without a masterplan. The interwar expansion into Eltham, Kidbrooke and the southern suburbs added the generous semi-detached and detached plots that today make some of the borough's most sought-after backland and garden opportunities.

The borough's later history is dominated by the big regeneration stories — the Greenwich Peninsula around The O2, built on the vast former East Greenwich Gas Works; Charlton Riverside, a 122-hectare transformation of former industrial land guided by the council's 2017 Supplementary Planning Document; the Royal Arsenal at Woolwich; and the renewal of Kidbrooke and Thamesmead. These are essential to the borough's housing supply, but they are large, long-term and developer-led. They are not where an individual owner or small builder can operate.

That is precisely why small sites matter so much. Alongside the headline regeneration, London's housing need is increasingly expected to be met on thousands of modest plots dispersed across the existing suburbs — the gardens, gaps, corner sites, redundant garages and small commercial units that make up the fine grain of the borough. The London Plan's Policy H2, with its presumption in favour of small housing developments and its small-site housing targets for every borough, is a deliberate policy shift to unlock exactly this kind of dispersed capacity. Greenwich, like every London borough, carries a small-sites contribution to its overall housing target.

This has real consequences for how the borough handles these applications. On the one hand, there is genuine policy support for well-designed intensification of the existing residential fabric, and the borough must plan positively for small-site delivery. On the other, the borough has to balance that against protecting the character of established residential areas, safeguarding gardens and amenity, and avoiding 'town cramming'. The result is that small schemes in Greenwich succeed or fail on design quality and fit: a scheme that reads as a sensitive, high-quality addition to its street is pushing at an open door, while one that reads as an overbearing intrusion into a settled residential area faces an uphill battle.

Every planning application in the borough is decided against the development plan, which for Greenwich means the Royal Greenwich Local Plan: Core Strategy with Detailed Policies, adopted on 30 July 2014, together with the London Plan (2021) and national policy in the National Planning Policy Framework. The Core Strategy sets the borough's approach to housing growth, design and the protection of residential amenity and character, and a small development has to be built to answer it. The council is also preparing a new Local Plan to replace the 2014 document, so it is always worth checking the current position for your site at the point of application.

The housing policies (the Core Strategy's 'H' series) set the borough's overall approach to delivering new homes: making the most of the borough's land to meet housing need, seeking an appropriate mix of dwelling sizes and types, requiring high residential quality, and securing affordable housing on schemes above the relevant threshold. For a small development, the mix and quality expectations matter most — the borough wants new homes that meet space standards, provide a sensible range of sizes (including family-sized homes where appropriate), and offer decent internal and external amenity.

The design policies (led by Policy DH1, the borough's core design policy) require all new development to be of high quality, to respond to and enhance local character, to provide good-quality living environments, and to achieve accessible and inclusive design. Policy DH1 is the policy a case officer will lean on most heavily when assessing whether a small infill or backland scheme respects the grain, scale, materials and layout of its surroundings. Policy DH2 deals with tall buildings and defines where height is appropriate — relevant if a small flatted scheme pushes above the prevailing height of its context. Heritage assets, conservation areas and the World Heritage Site setting are protected by the borough's heritage policies and by national law.

Running through all of these is the London Plan, which for a Greenwich scheme is part of the development plan and often decisive on housing quality. The London Plan sets the residential space standards, the design-led approach to density (Policy D3, optimising site capacity), housing quality and standards (Policy D6), and the affordable-housing framework (Policies H4 and H5). A well-prepared small-development application in Greenwich has to demonstrate compliance with both the borough's Local Plan and the London Plan simultaneously, and we structure the planning statement to walk the case officer through both.

The most important policy for a small development is London Plan Policy H2, 'Small sites'. It defines small sites as those capable of delivering up to nine homes, or below 0.25 hectares, and it establishes a positive framework for them. Boroughs are required to increase the contribution that small sites make to housing supply, to apply a presumption in favour of small housing developments, and to be flexible about design and density on such sites. Every London borough — Greenwich included — is given a small-sites housing target that it must plan to deliver, largely through incremental intensification of the existing residential fabric.

Policy H2 is explicit that small housing developments should be supported where they are of good design, in keeping with the local character, and where they make efficient use of land. It specifically encourages the kinds of scheme this page is about: infill development, the redevelopment of small sites, small parades, and the intensification of suburban plots — including, importantly, well-designed development on backland and garden sites where it can be achieved without harm to character or amenity. It also directs boroughs not to refuse small schemes solely on the grounds that they depart from the prevailing pattern where a high-quality design justifies it.

For an applicant, this is genuine encouragement, but it comes with a firm condition attached at every turn: design quality and local character. The presumption in favour is a presumption in favour of good schemes. Policy H2 does not override the borough's ability to refuse a scheme that would harm the character of an area, overlook neighbours, provide substandard homes or fail on amenity — it simply says that, where those tests are met, the borough should say yes. The whole art of a successful small development in Greenwich is to design a scheme that lets the case officer rely on that presumption rather than on the exceptions to it.

The practical implication is that the earliest and most valuable work on any small site is an honest capacity study: how many homes of what size the plot can genuinely accommodate to a good standard, given its dimensions, its neighbours, the daylight and amenity constraints, and the character of the street. Over-development is the most common cause of refusal on small sites; getting the number right — the point at which the scheme is optimised but still policy-compliant — is the foundation of everything that follows.

A large share of small development in Greenwich happens on backland, infill and garden plots, and each has its own planning character. Infill development — filling a genuine gap in an otherwise built-up frontage, such as a wide side garden or a plot between two houses — is generally the most straightforward, because it completes an existing street pattern rather than introducing a new one. The design task is to sit comfortably within the established building line, plot width, height and rhythm so the new home reads as a natural part of the street. Done well, infill is exactly the kind of intensification Policy H2 encourages.

Backland development — building on land behind existing houses, typically at the bottom of long gardens or on former yards accessed by a narrow driveway — is more sensitive, because it introduces a new layer of development into the interior of a block that was previously private garden. The recurring objections are overlooking and loss of privacy for the surrounding houses whose gardens back onto the site; the impact of a new access drive on the amenity of neighbours; and whether the development harms the open, green character of the backland. National guidance and the borough's design policies both allow well-designed backland schemes but scrutinise them closely, and the key is a layout that turns its back on nothing and overlooks no one.

Garden-land development — building on part of a residential garden — sits in a particular policy context. Since 2010, private residential gardens have not been classed as 'previously developed land' (brownfield) in national policy, which removed the automatic presumption that gardens were fair game for development and gave councils a clearer basis to resist 'garden grabbing' where it would harm character or amenity. That does not prohibit garden development — Policy H2 positively contemplates it on suitable sites — but it means a garden scheme has to earn its permission on design and amenity merits, and cannot lean on a brownfield presumption. In practice, a garden or backland home in Greenwich succeeds when it is genuinely well designed, respects the pattern of gardens and buildings around it, and leaves both the new and existing homes with adequate private outdoor space.

Across all three site types, the same handful of issues decide the application: the effect on the character and grain of the area; overlooking, privacy and the relationship to neighbours; the retention of adequate garden and amenity space; access, parking and refuse arrangements; and trees and landscaping. We test every one of these at the feasibility stage, because a backland or garden scheme that ignores them will be refused however attractive the houses themselves, while one that answers them thoughtfully can unlock real value from land that looked, at first glance, undevelopable.

One of the biggest changes in recent London planning is the move away from crude density figures (homes or habitable rooms per hectare) towards a 'design-led' approach to how much development a site should take. London Plan Policy D3 requires that the capacity of a site be worked out not by looking up a number in a table, but by testing what the site can genuinely accommodate to a high standard — its context, its connectivity and public-transport accessibility, the character and grain of the surrounding area, and the quality of the homes and amenity that can be achieved. In other words, the right number of homes is the maximum that can be delivered well, not the maximum that can be crammed in.

For a small site, this design-led approach cuts both ways, and both are useful. On the one hand, a well-connected site near a station in Greenwich — say, close to the Elizabeth line at Abbey Wood or Woolwich, or the DLR — can justify a higher density and more homes than the same-sized site in a low-accessibility location, because good transport supports more intensive use of land. On the other hand, a site in a sensitive low-rise suburban context, or one hemmed in by neighbours, will be limited by character and amenity however good its transport, because the homes and their neighbours have to enjoy decent living conditions.

This is why a capacity study is the first design task on any small site. We test how the plot works at different intensities — two houses versus three, a pair of semis versus a small block of flats — against the space standard, the daylight and amenity tests, parking and refuse, and the character of the street, to find the point at which the scheme is optimised but still policy-compliant. That number is the honest development potential of the site, and it is the figure the whole scheme and appraisal should be built on.

Getting density right is not just a planning nicety; it is the single biggest determinant of both viability and success. Push too hard and the scheme is refused for over-development, poor amenity or harm to character — a costly failure. Aim too low and the land is under-used and the appraisal weaker than it should be. The design-led approach, applied honestly, finds the sweet spot, and it is one of the most valuable things a good architect brings to a small development.

Because a small development is a full planning application, every new home is held to the full residential space standards, and in Greenwich that means the nationally described space standard (NDSS), which the London Plan adopts and applies across the capital. The NDSS sets minimum gross internal floor areas for new homes by the number of bedrooms, bed spaces and storeys. A one-bedroom, one-person home must be at least 39 square metres (or 37 square metres where it has a shower room rather than a bathroom); a one-bedroom, two-person home at least 50 square metres; a two-bedroom, three-person home at least 61 square metres (single storey) or 70 square metres over two storeys; a two-bedroom, four-person home at least 79 square metres; and a three-bedroom, five-person home at least 93 square metres, rising for larger homes.

The standard goes beyond overall floor area. Every home must have a minimum amount of built-in storage (1.5 square metres for a one or two-person home, rising with size). Single bedrooms must be at least 7.5 square metres and 2.15 metres wide; double or twin bedrooms at least 11.5 square metres, with the principal one at least 2.75 metres wide and others at least 2.55 metres wide. The NDSS also sets a minimum floor-to-ceiling height of 2.3 metres over at least 75 per cent of the home's area — though the London Plan raises this to a more generous 2.5 metres over 75 per cent of the gross internal area, which is the figure that applies in Greenwich.

The London Plan (Policy D6, housing quality and standards) adds further requirements on top of the NDSS floor areas: private outdoor space for every home (a minimum area of private balcony, terrace or garden that increases with the number of occupants); a strong preference for dual-aspect homes and a general aim to avoid single-aspect north-facing flats; adequate daylight, sunlight and outlook; and sensible limits on the number of homes served by a single core in a flatted scheme. These are the standards that turn a set of floor areas into genuinely liveable homes, and the borough assesses them carefully.

We design to these standards from the very first sketch, rather than treating them as a compliance check at the end. Every home is laid out to meet or exceed the NDSS area for its type, with compliant bedrooms, storage and ceiling heights, the required private amenity space, and dual aspect and good daylight wherever the site allows. The areas and standards are then annotated clearly on the drawings — floor area, private amenity area, storage — so the case officer can verify compliance at a glance rather than having to scale off the plans. Homes that meet the standards comfortably are far more likely to be approved and far more valuable when built.

Beyond the internal standards, the design of the buildings themselves — how they look, how they sit in the street, and how they affect their neighbours — is where most small schemes in Greenwich are won or lost. Policy DH1 requires new development to be of high quality and to respond to and, where possible, enhance local character. In practice, that means a scheme has to be genuinely rooted in its context: the building line, the plot rhythm, the height and roof form, the fenestration pattern, and the materials of the surrounding street should all inform the design, so the new homes read as a considered addition rather than an alien import.

That does not mean slavish imitation — good contemporary design that responds intelligently to context is welcomed, and Policy H2 explicitly discourages refusing small schemes just because they differ from the prevailing pattern where the design quality justifies it. But it does mean the design has to demonstrate a clear, articulate relationship to its surroundings. This is particularly important in and near the borough's conservation areas and the World Heritage Site setting, where the character and appearance the designation protects place real constraints on height, massing and materials.

The impact on neighbours is assessed just as carefully, and it is the most common battleground on small sites. The council will look at overlooking and loss of privacy (window-to-window and window-to-garden distances, overlooking of neighbouring gardens, and the use of screening and obscured glazing); loss of light to neighbouring windows and gardens (daylight and sunlight, and overshadowing); and any sense of overbearing enclosure or loss of outlook created by a new building close to a boundary. A scheme that respects these relationships is far more likely to succeed; one that maximises floor area at the expense of the neighbours will draw objections and, often, a refusal.

We resolve all of this in the design, not in the planning statement afterwards. The layout is developed to protect neighbours' privacy and light, to give the new homes decent outlook and amenity, and to sit comfortably in the street — and where the relationship to a neighbour is tight, we test it with sections and, where needed, daylight and sunlight analysis so the case is made with evidence rather than assertion. Good neighbour relations are designed in from the start, because they are far cheaper to build in than to bolt on after an objection.

A new dwelling is a complete structure that has to be engineered from the ground up, and the structural design is a real part of a small development — not an afterthought. Crown provides the structural design alongside the architecture, so the scheme you submit is a coordinated, buildable proposal rather than a planning sketch that runs into trouble the moment an engineer looks at it. The starting point is always the ground: the type and depth of foundations depend on the soil, the water table, the proximity of trees (whose roots and moisture demand can cause clay soils to shrink and heave, requiring deeper or specially designed foundations), and any made ground or former use of the site.

Greenwich's varied geology matters here. Sites on the higher ground of Blackheath, Shooters Hill and Eltham sit largely on the sands and gravels of the Blackheath Beds and the London Clay; low-lying riverside and eastern areas — the Peninsula, Charlton Riverside, Thamesmead and Abbey Wood — sit on alluvium and made ground over the clay, often with a high water table and, on former industrial land, a legacy of contamination and variable ground. The foundation solution flows directly from what a ground investigation finds, and on more difficult ground that can mean piled foundations, ground beams or a reinforced raft rather than simple strip footings.

Above the foundations, the superstructure has to be designed for the loads it will carry and the way it will be built — masonry cavity walls, timber frame, light-gauge steel or a hybrid, with floors, roof structure, lintels and beams all sized and detailed. For a small flatted scheme, the structure also has to accommodate the stair and lift core, the separating floors and walls between homes, and any transfer structure where the layout changes between floors. Every large opening, every beam and every load path is designed and calculated so the drawings are genuinely constructable.

By designing the architecture and the structure together, we avoid the classic small-development trap: a planning layout that cannot actually be built as drawn once the foundations, beams, separating walls and services are worked out. On tight backland and infill sites in particular, the construction method and sequence — how you get materials and machinery onto a constrained plot, how you build close to boundaries and neighbouring foundations — is part of the design from the outset, because it affects both what is buildable and what the neighbours (and their party-wall surveyors) will accept.

Every new home needs a complete set of building services — heating, hot water, ventilation, electrical installation, water supply, foul and surface-water drainage, and increasingly renewable energy generation — and on a small development these have to be designed for each new dwelling and coordinated with the architecture and structure. Crown provides the building-services (MEP) design in-house, so the services strategy is developed alongside the plans rather than left for a contractor to improvise on site, which is where uncoordinated services cause the worst clashes and compromises.

The biggest change in this area is the shift to low-carbon heating. Under the direction of travel set by the Future Homes Standard and the tightening of Part L, new homes are moving decisively away from gas boilers towards low-carbon systems — principally air-source heat pumps, and in some schemes connection to a heat network. Designing around a heat pump is not simply a matter of swapping the boiler: it affects the whole home, because heat pumps run best with larger radiators or underfloor heating, well-insulated fabric, and space for the external unit and a hot-water cylinder. Getting this right at design stage avoids expensive redesign later.

Ventilation, too, has become a design discipline in its own right. As homes are built more airtight to save energy, controlled ventilation — often mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) or continuous mechanical extract — is needed to maintain good indoor air quality and avoid condensation and mould, all governed by Part F of the Building Regulations. The electrical design has to provide for modern demand, including electric vehicle charging (which the Building Regulations now require for new homes with parking) and the additional load of heat pumps. And every home needs its water supply and its foul and surface-water drainage designed and connected.

Coordinating all of this on a small site is genuinely valuable, because the space for services — plant, risers, cylinders, heat-pump units, meter positions and drainage runs — has to be found within a compact building without compromising the accommodation or the appearance. By designing the services with the architecture and structure as one package, we make sure the plant fits, the drainage falls work, the heat-pump units sit sensibly, and the finished homes are efficient, comfortable and compliant.

A brand-new dwelling has to demonstrate its energy and carbon performance before it can be built and occupied, and the mechanism is the SAP (Standard Assessment Procedure) calculation, which underpins compliance with Part L of the Building Regulations and produces the Energy Performance Certificate. For each new home, an energy assessor models the fabric, heating, hot water, ventilation and any renewables and checks that the predicted carbon emissions and energy use meet the Part L targets. This is a design input, not just a sign-off: the SAP assessment should shape the specification — insulation levels, airtightness, glazing, heating system and renewables — from an early stage, so the home is designed to comply rather than patched to pass.

The regulatory bar is rising sharply. The 2021 update to Part L, an interim step towards the Future Homes Standard, already required new homes to produce around 30 per cent less carbon than under the previous standard, pushing schemes towards better fabric, low-carbon heating and, on many sites, photovoltaic panels. The Future Homes Standard itself takes this considerably further: new homes will be expected to produce in the order of 75 to 80 per cent less carbon than a home built to the 2013 standard, a level that in practice rules out fossil-fuel heating and makes heat pumps (or low-carbon heat networks), high-performance fabric and on-site renewables such as solar panels the norm. Anyone designing a new home now should design with the Future Homes Standard direction of travel in mind, because the standard is what new homes are moving to.

In London there is an additional layer. The London Plan applies its own energy hierarchy — 'be lean, be clean, be green' (and now 'be seen', requiring in-use energy monitoring on larger schemes) — and sets a target for major residential development to be net zero-carbon, with any shortfall met through a cash-in-lieu contribution to the borough's carbon-offset fund. Major schemes (ten or more homes) must submit a detailed energy strategy demonstrating this. Smaller schemes below the major threshold are generally assessed through Part L and SAP rather than a full London Plan energy statement, but the borough still expects genuinely low-carbon design, and it is sensible to design to the higher standard in any event.

We integrate the energy strategy with the design from the outset, working with an energy assessor so that the fabric, the heating system, the ventilation and the renewables are settled as part of the design rather than bolted on to achieve a pass. That produces homes that are cheaper to run, more comfortable, more valuable and futureproofed against the tightening standards — and it avoids the costly late redesign that comes from discovering, after planning, that the scheme cannot economically meet the energy requirements as drawn.

Every new development creates new demands on drainage, and both foul drainage (from kitchens and bathrooms) and surface-water drainage (rainwater from roofs and paving) have to be designed, agreed and, on many sites, actively managed. Foul drainage generally connects to the existing public sewer, but the capacity of the local network has to be checked and, on some sites, an upgrade or a pumped connection is needed. Surface water is the more significant planning issue, because paving over a previously green plot increases run-off and can worsen flooding downstream if it is not managed.

London and national policy therefore require new development to manage surface water through sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and to follow the drainage hierarchy, discharging rainwater to the ground (infiltration) or a watercourse in preference to the sewer, and only to the sewer as a last resort and at a restricted rate. The London Plan sets demanding targets for reducing surface-water run-off, aiming towards 'greenfield' run-off rates where feasible. In practice, a small development achieves this with measures such as permeable paving, soakaways, rainwater harvesting, green roofs, rain gardens and attenuation tanks that store rainwater and release it slowly.

Parts of the Royal Borough of Greenwich carry a genuine flood risk that makes drainage and flood design especially important. The low-lying riverside and eastern areas — the Peninsula, parts of Charlton, Woolwich, Thamesmead and Abbey Wood — sit within the Thames tidal floodplain and are protected by the Thames Barrier and the river defences, and development in these areas has to address flood risk through a flood risk assessment, appropriate floor levels, and often flood-resilient construction. The Environment Agency's flood zones and the borough's own flood-risk mapping determine what is required for a given site.

We design the drainage and, where needed, the flood-risk response as part of the scheme, coordinating with a drainage engineer so the SuDS strategy is realistic and the levels and connections actually work. On a small infill or backland site this can be a genuine design constraint — there may be limited room for soakaways or attenuation, and the ground may not infiltrate well — so it is far better resolved at the design stage than discovered as a problem when the council or the lead local flood authority asks how the surface water will be managed.

Many small developments involve demolishing something first — an old house being replaced, a garage or outbuilding, or a small commercial building being cleared for homes. Demolition is subject to its own controls: in a conservation area, demolishing a building generally needs planning permission for the demolition itself, and demolishing a listed building needs listed building consent; elsewhere, demolition of a whole building usually requires a prior-approval notification to the council about the method and site restoration, and always has to comply with the health-and-safety and notification requirements of the demolition legislation. We build the demolition strategy into the project so it is dealt with correctly rather than becoming an unexpected obstacle.

Party-wall matters are almost unavoidable on the tight sites where small development happens. The Party Wall etc. Act 1996 gives neighbours legal protections where you build on or at the boundary, excavate near their foundations, or work on a shared wall — all common on infill, backland and terrace-end schemes. Before that work starts, you must serve the correct notices on the affected neighbours, and if they do not consent, a party-wall award (usually prepared by surveyors) has to be agreed. This is a legal process running alongside the planning and building-regulations work, and it needs to be started in good time because it can take weeks to resolve.

Building close to boundaries and to neighbouring buildings also drives real design and construction decisions. Foundations near a neighbour's foundations, walls on or near the boundary, eaves and gutters that must not oversail, and the practicalities of getting plant and materials onto a constrained plot all shape what can be built and how. On a backland site with a narrow access, the construction logistics can be as decisive as the design, and neighbours will rightly scrutinise the disruption a build will cause.

We anticipate all of this from the feasibility stage: identifying where demolition consents or prior approval will be needed, where party-wall notices will have to be served, and where the relationship to boundaries and neighbours will constrain the design or the construction. Handled early, these are routine parts of a well-run project; ignored, they cause delay, cost and disputes that can stall a scheme after permission has been granted.

One of the real advantages of keeping a scheme small is how it is treated for affordable housing. Under the London Plan's threshold approach (Policies H4 and H5), on-site affordable housing is generally sought only on schemes of ten or more homes; below that threshold — that is, on schemes of nine homes or fewer, and with a gross floor area under 1,000 square metres — boroughs are directed not to seek on-site affordable housing, and any affordable-housing contribution is taken instead as a modest cash payment through a borough tariff, if at all. This is precisely why the two-to-nine-unit band is such a sweet spot: a well-designed nine-home scheme can avoid the on-site affordable-housing requirement that a ten-home scheme would trigger.

For schemes that do cross into major development (ten or more homes), the London Plan's threshold approach offers a 'Fast Track': schemes that provide at least 35 per cent affordable housing (rising to 50 per cent on public land and certain industrial land) by habitable room, in the right tenure mix and meeting the other criteria, can proceed without a detailed viability assessment; schemes offering less must submit full viability evidence and follow the slower 'Viability Tested' route. The borough's own Local Plan sets its affordable-housing expectations within this framework. Keeping a scheme just below ten homes, where the site and viability justify it, is a legitimate and common way to deliver a straightforward small development — but it must be a genuine design decision, not artificial fragmentation of a larger site.

The Community Infrastructure Levy (CIL) applies to almost all new residential development regardless of size, and it is charged on the net additional internal floorspace created. In Greenwich there are two CILs to budget for: the Mayor of London's CIL (which funds Crossrail and London-wide infrastructure) and the borough's own CIL. The Royal Borough of Greenwich adopted an updated CIL charging schedule in 2024, with rates that vary by zone and use, so the exact charge depends on the location of the site and the floorspace created. Self-builders building their own home to live in can claim an exemption from CIL, and there is relief for affordable housing and for retained floorspace, but the CIL liability on a small development should always be calculated early because it affects the appraisal.

Larger small schemes may also attract a Section 106 agreement securing site-specific contributions — for example towards transport, carbon offset or other matters — though on genuinely minor schemes these are usually limited or dealt with through CIL and conditions. We build the affordable-housing position, the CIL liability and any likely obligations into the feasibility appraisal from the start, so the scheme you take forward is realistic on both planning and financial terms and there are no unwelcome surprises after permission.

A small residential development application has to tell the Royal Borough of Greenwich a clear, complete story: what the site is now, what will be built, how the new homes will work, and how the scheme meets policy. We prepare the full drawing package and the supporting documents so the application is complete, internally consistent and easy for a case officer to assess and recommend — because a coordinated application is both more likely to be approved and far quicker to determine.

The core drawing set includes a measured survey of the site (and any building to be demolished or retained); a location plan and a block plan; existing site plans, and for any building being altered or replaced, its existing plans, elevations and sections; and then the proposed drawings — the site layout showing the new homes, access, parking, refuse and cycle storage, boundaries and landscaping, plus floor plans, elevations and sections of each house type or the block, with the internal areas of every home annotated against the nationally described space standard and the private amenity space marked. Where the site is sensitive, contextual street elevations, sections through boundaries and, on flatted or prominent schemes, three-dimensional visualisations bring the proposal to life.

Alongside the drawings we prepare or coordinate the supporting documents the scheme needs. A design and access statement (required for certain schemes, and valuable on most) explains the design thinking and how the scheme responds to context and policy; a planning statement sets out compliance with the borough's Local Plan and the London Plan. Depending on the site, the application may also need a daylight and sunlight assessment, an arboricultural (tree) survey and report, a flood risk assessment and drainage strategy, an ecology or biodiversity net gain assessment, a transport statement, a heritage statement (near heritage assets or the World Heritage Site), and a contamination assessment on former commercial or industrial land. We advise precisely which of these your site requires so you commission only what is needed.

The whole package is prepared to be internally consistent: the home sizes on the plans match the areas quoted in the planning statement, the drainage strategy matches the levels on the drawings, the tree report matches the layout, and the energy approach matches the specification. A self-consistent application that answers the policy tests up front is materially more likely to be approved, and it avoids the delays that come when a case officer finds the drawings and reports quietly contradicting one another.

The process starts with feasibility. We survey the site, check its planning history and any constraints (conservation area, listed buildings, the World Heritage Site setting, trees with preservation orders, flood zone, contamination), and carry out the capacity study that establishes how many homes of what size the plot can genuinely support to a good standard. This is where we give you an honest view of what is realistic before you commit to a full application — the single most valuable stage on a small site, because it is far cheaper to establish the right scheme on paper than to be refused.

The Royal Borough of Greenwich offers a pre-application advice service, and on all but the most straightforward small schemes it is usually worth using. A written pre-application response gives you the council's early view on the principle and the design of the scheme, flags concerns while there is still time to respond, and shows the eventual case officer that the proposal has been developed thoughtfully. It is particularly valuable where the site is sensitive (a conservation area, a backland or garden plot, or near heritage assets) or where the acceptable number of homes is finely balanced.

We then prepare the full drawing package and supporting documents, submit the application to the council through the Planning Portal, and manage it through validation and determination. Minor residential applications (fewer than ten homes) run against an eight-week statutory target from validation, though schemes needing negotiation or amendments can take longer. Through determination we respond to the case officer's queries, provide additional information, and negotiate amendments where that will secure approval rather than a refusal. Neighbour and statutory consultation runs in parallel, and we help you respond constructively to any objections.

Once planning permission is granted, the project moves into the technical stages. We discharge any pre-commencement conditions, prepare the Building Regulations drawings and specification, and produce the construction information your contractor needs — and we deal with the building-control application (through the local authority or an approved inspector), the SAP energy assessment, the drainage design, and the party-wall process. Because the same coordinated team that won the permission delivers the technical and construction design, the project moves smoothly from consent to a buildable set of drawings, rather than being handed off and starting again.

The cost of a small residential development in Greenwich depends on the number and type of homes, the complexity of the site and how many specialist inputs the scheme needs. A single infill house on a straightforward plot is a very different proposition from a backland scheme of several homes on a constrained garden site with tree, drainage and party-wall issues, or a small block of flats. We scope our work to your specific project and give you a clear, fixed fee for our part — the architecture, the structural design and the building-services design — before any drawing work begins, so you know where you stand.

Separate from our fee, you should budget for the council's planning application fee, which is set nationally and charged per dwelling, and for any pre-application advice fee. Depending on the site, you may also need specialist consultants whose fees are additional: an arboriculturalist for a tree report, a daylight and sunlight consultant, a drainage or flood-risk engineer, an ecologist for biodiversity net gain, an energy assessor for SAP, a geo-environmental consultant for contamination on former commercial or industrial land, and party-wall surveyors. We tell you honestly which of these your scheme genuinely needs, so you are not paying for reports the application does not require.

Then there are the costs that fall due once permission is granted: the building-control fees, the Community Infrastructure Levy on the net new floorspace (both Mayoral and Greenwich CIL, unless a self-build exemption applies), and the construction cost itself. Because CIL and the technical requirements can materially affect a small scheme's viability, we build them into the feasibility appraisal at the outset rather than leaving them as surprises after the design is done.

On timescales, feasibility and design typically take a few weeks once we have surveyed the site; pre-application advice, where used, adds several weeks; and the planning application runs against the eight-week target for minor schemes, longer where negotiation, amendments or a committee decision are involved. The technical and construction stages then follow. We give you a realistic programme for your specific scheme at the outset, and the honest truth of small development is that money is lost on refusals, redesigns and unforeseen technical problems — not on getting the feasibility and design right first time.

Understanding why small schemes fail is the best way to make sure yours does not, and the reasons for refusal on small sites in Greenwich are remarkably consistent. The most common by far is over-development: too many homes, or too much building, crammed onto the plot, producing cramped homes, inadequate amenity space, poor daylight, and a scheme that overwhelms its context. This is the direct penalty for getting the density wrong, and it is why the honest capacity study at feasibility is so important — the answer to over-development is to design the right number of good homes, not the maximum number of poor ones.

The second recurring theme is harm to the character of the area. A scheme whose scale, height, massing, plot coverage or design is out of keeping with the established grain of the street — particularly in a conservation area or near the World Heritage Site — will be refused under the borough's design policies, however efficient its internal layout. Closely related is harm to neighbours' amenity: overlooking and loss of privacy, loss of light, and an overbearing or enclosing relationship to neighbouring homes and gardens are among the most frequent reasons small applications, especially backland and garden schemes, are turned down.

The remaining refusal reasons are the technical and standards ones: homes that fall below the nationally described space standard or the London Plan's quality standards (poor daylight, single-aspect north-facing units, inadequate private amenity space); the loss of trees or inadequate landscaping; unresolved drainage or flood risk; unacceptable access, parking or refuse arrangements; and, on former commercial or industrial land, unresolved contamination. Any one of these can sink an otherwise reasonable scheme, which is why a good application answers every one of them before the council has to ask.

Our approach is to anticipate each of these reasons and design it out. We size the scheme honestly, root the design in its context, protect the neighbours' privacy and light, meet the space and quality standards comfortably, and resolve the trees, drainage, access and contamination up front. Where a site simply cannot support the number of homes an owner hoped for, we say so at feasibility — because there is no value in submitting an application designed to be refused.

A very common form of small development in Greenwich is replacing a single dwelling — often a tired bungalow, a small detached house on a generous plot, or a poorly configured building — with two, three or more new homes. This can be an efficient use of land in exactly the way the London Plan encourages, but it engages every one of the design, density, amenity and standards tests this page describes, and the fact that a home already exists on the site does not give an automatic right to a larger or more intensive replacement. Each new home is assessed on its merits.

The design questions are familiar but sharpened by the comparison with what is there now: whether the increased density is appropriate to the character and grain of the street; whether the new homes and their neighbours will enjoy adequate light, privacy and amenity; whether the plot can properly accommodate the parking, refuse, cycle storage and garden space the new homes need; and whether the scale and massing of the replacement respects its surroundings. A replacement scheme that reads as a sympathetic intensification tends to succeed; one that reads as an overbearing overdevelopment of a plot that used to hold a single modest house tends to be refused.

There is also a straightforward one-for-one version of this — replacing an existing house with a single new dwelling, sometimes because the existing house is beyond economic repair or simply unsuited to modern living. Even a one-for-one replacement is a full planning application (you are erecting a new building), and it is assessed on its design, its relationship to neighbours and its fit with the character of the area, though the acceptability of a home on the site in principle is rarely in doubt. Where the site is in a conservation area or the existing building has any heritage interest, demolition consents and heritage tests come into play.

We treat replacement schemes as an opportunity to get more, and better, out of a plot than the existing building achieves — testing honestly how many good homes the site can support, designing them to sit well in their context and protect their neighbours, and building the case that the intensification is appropriate. The key, as always, is the number: the right scheme is the one that optimises the plot while remaining genuinely policy-compliant, and finding that point is the heart of the work.

To make the process concrete, consider a common Greenwich scenario: an owner in one of the interwar suburbs — say Eltham or Kidbrooke — has a house on a wide plot with a long rear garden and vehicular access down one side, and wants to build two new houses on the land behind. It is exactly the kind of backland opportunity the London Plan's small-sites policy contemplates, but it engages every one of the issues this page describes, and its success will turn entirely on the quality of the plans and the strength of the planning case.

At feasibility, we survey the site and test its real capacity: can it take two houses, or is one the honest limit, given the width of the plot, the relationship to the neighbouring gardens that back onto it, the access arrangement, and the need to leave both the existing and the new homes with proper private gardens? We check the character of the surrounding backland — is this an area of open, green rear gardens the borough will want to protect, or one where careful backland development already exists? — and we identify the constraints: mature trees that may be protected, the drainage and any soakaway potential of the ground, and the party-wall and boundary relationships. This is where we give the owner an honest view of what the plot will really support.

Assuming two well-spaced houses are realistic, we design them to sit quietly in the interior of the block: single-storey or carefully massed two-storey forms that do not overbear the neighbours; windows arranged and, where needed, obscured or high-level to avoid overlooking the surrounding gardens; each house meeting the nationally described space standard with a compliant internal layout, good daylight and its own private garden; and a shared access designed to minimise disturbance. The structural design responds to the ground and the trees — likely deeper or specially designed foundations near the mature trees — and the services, including air-source heat pumps and SuDS drainage, are coordinated into the compact plots.

On the planning side, we prepare the full drawing set with every home's area annotated, plus a design and access statement and a planning statement that meet the borough's policies head-on: they demonstrate the space and amenity standards, show how the design responds to the backland character, prove that the neighbours' privacy and light are protected with sections and, where needed, daylight analysis, and address the trees, drainage and access. Because the site is a suitable small site, the scheme is well designed and its neighbour and character impacts are resolved, it goes in as a proposal the case officer can rely on the small-sites presumption to support.

Managed through the council's validation and determination against the eight-week target — with a pre-application discussion beforehand if the site is finely balanced — a scheme like this has a genuine prospect of consent. Once permission and any conditions are dealt with, the same coordinated team prepares the Building Regulations and construction drawings, handles the party-wall notices, and takes the project through to a buildable set of information. That is the difference between a small development designed to succeed and one simply hoped through.

A grant of planning permission for a small development rarely comes without conditions, and it is worth knowing what to expect so they can be discharged smoothly rather than becoming a stumbling block. Conditions are requirements attached to the permission that must be met — some before development begins ('pre-commencement'), some before occupation, and some on an ongoing basis — and complying with them is essential to implementing the permission lawfully.

On small residential schemes, the characteristic conditions cover materials and detailed design (samples or details of the external materials, to protect the quality the permission was granted for); landscaping and boundary treatment; the retention and protection of trees during construction, and often replacement planting; the approved drainage and SuDS scheme; refuse and cycle storage; and, on schemes with parking, the provision of electric-vehicle charging. On flatted schemes, conditions securing the private and communal amenity space and the internal layout are common.

Site-specific conditions follow from the site's constraints. On former commercial or industrial land, a contamination condition will require investigation, remediation and verification before occupation; in or near a conservation area or the World Heritage Site setting, conditions on materials, detailing and joinery protect the heritage interest; on a flood-risk site, conditions on floor levels and flood resilience apply; and a construction management plan is frequently required on constrained backland and infill sites to control the impact of the build on neighbours.

We flag any onerous conditions when the decision arrives and can prepare the discharge submissions, so the scheme can move into construction without avoidable delay. Because we design the scheme with the likely conditions in mind — the materials, landscaping, trees, drainage and, where relevant, contamination and construction management — the conditions the council attaches are generally ones the scheme already anticipates, which makes discharging them straightforward rather than a fresh round of design.

Not every application is approved first time, and a refusal is not necessarily the end of the road. When the Royal Borough of Greenwich refuses a small residential application, it must give its reasons, and those reasons are the roadmap for what happens next. Sometimes the sensible response is to revise the scheme to overcome the objections and resubmit; sometimes, where the refusal turns on a matter of planning judgement we consider wrong, the right route is an appeal to the Planning Inspectorate.

A revised application is often the faster and cheaper route where the reasons for refusal are about matters that can be designed out — a slightly reduced number of homes, a revised layout to resolve overlooking, a lower or reworked massing to answer a character objection, or additional information on trees, drainage or daylight. The planning system allows one further application within a set period of a refusal without a second fee (the 'free go'), which makes a well-judged resubmission an efficient way to secure consent where the principle of development is accepted and only the detail is at issue.

An appeal is the route where the refusal turns on a matter of principle — most often a disputed conclusion about whether the site is suitable for development at all, whether the density is acceptable, or how much weight the small-sites presumption should carry against a character or amenity objection — that a revised scheme cannot resolve. Appeals take longer and require a properly argued case drawing on national policy, the development plan, the London Plan and appeal precedent, but a well-founded appeal against an unreasonable refusal can and does succeed, particularly given the strong national and London-wide policy support for well-designed small-site housing.

The best defence against a refusal is, of course, an application designed not to be refused — which is why we invest in the feasibility and capacity study, root the design in its context, and answer the character, amenity, standards and technical tests up front. But if a refusal does come, we give you a straight assessment of whether to revise and resubmit or to appeal, and prepare whichever route gives the scheme its best prospects.

Crown Architecture designs small residential developments across the Royal Borough of Greenwich and the surrounding boroughs, and we do it as a single coordinated service: the architecture, the structural engineering and the building-services (MEP) design under one roof. That matters more on a new build than on almost any other project, because a brand-new home is a complete piece of design in which the layout, the structure, the foundations, the services, the energy strategy and the drainage are all interdependent — design them in separate silos and they clash, and the clashes surface as cost and delay on site.

We know the Greenwich context: the Core Strategy's housing and design policies, Policy DH1 and the borough's expectations on character and amenity, the London Plan's small-sites presumption and space standards, the World Heritage Site setting and the conservation areas, and the practical realities — the varied ground conditions, the flood risk in the low-lying east, and the tight backland and infill sites where so much small development happens. We use that knowledge to give honest advice at feasibility and to build applications designed to pass.

Just as importantly, we are straightforward to work with. We tell you early and honestly how many good homes your site will really support, we quote a clear fixed fee, and we prepare a coordinated, self-consistent application that a case officer can approve without having to fill in the gaps. We manage the application through the council's validation and determination, respond to the case officer, and negotiate amendments where that will secure approval rather than a refusal.

We also stay with the project after planning. Once permission is granted we help discharge the conditions, prepare the Building Regulations and construction information your contractor needs, handle the SAP energy assessment and the party-wall process, and coordinate the structural and services design through to a buildable package. The aim is a single, accountable point of contact from the first site survey to a consented, buildable, deliverable small development — not a set of planning drawings handed over and a client left to navigate the council, the engineers and the specialists alone.

If you are considering a small residential development in Greenwich — an infill plot, a backland or garden site, a replacement scheme or a small block of flats — send us the address and what you have in mind, and we will tell you honestly what is achievable and how to get there.