54A Church Road, Richmond — Rear and Side Extension
54A Church Road, Richmond, TW10 6LN
Project overview
On paper, 54A Church Road is the kind of site that makes people nervous. In practice, it’s a small, dingy two-bedroom flat with barely any natural light — and the family living in it needed more space, or they were going to move.Tom had already been through this process twice before at this address, working with us on two earlier approvals that gradually reshaped the rear of the property. This time, the brief was bigger: a 7.5-metre rear extension to turn a cramped two-bed into a genuinely spacious three-bedroom flat with open-plan living, a new front door, and a patio big enough to actually use. Get it through planning, or start looking at other houses. That was the choice on the table.It went through. Granted by the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames on 29 June 2026, with no objections from a neighbour list that ran to eighteen addresses. The approved scheme will turn a dark, cramped flat into a bright, open-plan three-bed — and means Tom’s family can stay in the home and the area they wanted, rather than starting a house search from scratch.This was a single storey rear and side extension delivered through our architectural design service. Structural engineering, house extension drawings and party wall surveying were all run in-house on the same programme. — Zaeem Chaudhary BA (Hons), LLB, MCIAT, Director
The Project
Drawings and project imagery
Project Gallery
Selected architectural drawings, technical details and project views from the coordinated design package.
Planning strategy
Planning & Heritage
The SPD guidance for extensions like this suggests 3.5 metres as a comfortable depth. This scheme goes well past that — and still went through without a single objection, because it wasn’t a cold start. We’d already secured a building line for Tom under an earlier approval, 23/2434/FUL, and this application extended from that point rather than reopening the depth argument from scratch. The officer’s report backs this up directly: the extra depth works because the extension sits at lower ground floor level, keeping the eaves under the 2.2m threshold, and because it reads as a continuation of a line the Council had already approved twice before.
There was a genuine heritage test too — Section 72 of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the NPPF both give real weight to how a Building of Townscape Merit in a Conservation Area is treated. The officer’s conclusion: no incongruous addition, and the “sense of a coherent townscape group” along Church Road is preserved. A few smaller pieces fell into place around that — an Arboricultural Impact Assessment cleared the removal of one Holm Oak and two shrubs, a Flood Risk Assessment leaned on the baseline already set by the previous approval, and the BRE daylight and sunlight test came back clean. None of it was left to chance; the drawing package was produced alongside the planning strategy from day one, not after it.
The site also falls within an area affected by additional controls relating to basement development. Although this proposal was not for a new basement, the existing lower-ground-floor arrangement formed part of the planning and heritage context considered during the design.
Engineering coordination
Structural Engineering
Turning a cramped two-bed into an open-plan three-bed isn’t just a planning win — it’s a structural one too. Opening up the layout at lower ground floor level to create genuine open-plan living means removing internal walls that are currently doing real work, and a 7.5-metre rear extension of this scale needs its own foundations, retaining detail and steel to span the new opening cleanly, without a forest of posts breaking up the space the whole scheme was designed to create.
Our in-house structural engineering team ran this alongside the same team producing the planning drawings — so when the layout shifted during design development to make the open-plan space work better, the structural calculations moved with it in the same week, not on a separate consultant’s timeline.
Technical compliance
Building Regulations
The building regulations design addresses structural, thermal, drainage and fire safety requirements across the full scheme. Fire strategy required particular attention because the proposal alters the internal arrangement at lower-ground-floor level. Relocating the bedroom entrance so that it opens directly onto the hallway creates a clearer escape arrangement and allows the design to avoid relying on an emergency escape window, subject to confirmation through the Building Control process.
Full building regulation drawings were produced covering the extension, the altered internal layout and the relocated entrance. The package is now ready for submission to Building Control following the grant of planning permission.
Neighbouring property matters
Party Wall
A rear and side extension at lower ground level, on a semi-detached Building of Townscape Merit, means the shared boundary is in play — so the party wall provisions applied here too. Given everything else riding on this application, this wasn’t a step we could afford to get wrong. A party wall notice went out, the adjoining owner was kept in the loop, and the party wall award was in place without any dispute or delay. — Party wall matters successfully navigated by Zubear Ali BA (Hons), ACIArb, MIPWS, MCMI
Consent and delivery
Project Outcome
Permission granted 29 June 2026, no objections, no letters of representation — on a scheme that on paper pushes well past the borough’s own depth guidance. Three applications at this address now, three approvals, each one building on the last.
For Tom’s family, it means a dark two-bed flat will become a bright, open-plan three-bed — and they get to stay in the home and the area they wanted, rather than starting a house search from scratch. If you’re weighing up a similar decision — extend or move — and you’re sitting on a site with planning history that hasn’t been put to work yet, get in touch and we’ll look at what it can carry. We work across Hammersmith and Fulham, Kensington and Chelsea, Westminster, Richmond, and the rest of London.
