Is my Fulham home in a conservation area?
Hammersmith and Fulham has a number of designated conservation areas, including the Peterborough Estate at Parsons Green. You can check any address free on the council's planning map. In a conservation area, permitted development rights are restricted and some are removed entirely by Article 4 direction.
Conservation area designation changes what you can do without permission. Rear extensions may still be possible under permitted development, but side extensions, roof alterations, cladding and some outbuildings lose their permitted development rights. Demolition of boundary walls and works to trees also become controlled — and trees in conservation areas require six weeks' notice before any work.
An Article 4 direction goes further and removes specific permitted development rights entirely, so that things which are automatic elsewhere — replacing windows, painting a front elevation, laying a hard-standing — need a planning application. Where a direction applies, it is usually because a street's uniform appearance is the reason for designation. The Peterborough Estate's Lion Houses are a clear example: the uniformity is the point.
Checking is free and takes minutes on the council's website, and it should be the first thing anyone does before commissioning drawings. We do it for every enquiry as a matter of course. It is far better to know at the outset that a front dormer is not achievable than to find out after paying an architect to draw one.
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