Planning permission in Ealing

Planning in Ealing — the detail

Ealing — long nicknamed the “Queen of the Suburbs” — holds an unusually rich collection of planned and garden suburbs among its 32 conservation areas: Bedford Park, widely regarded as the world's first garden suburb; the Brentham Garden Estate, birthplace of the co-partnership garden-suburb movement; the Hanger Hill Garden Estate and Cuckoo Estate; and the Victorian and Edwardian streets of Ealing Common, Ealing Green, Mount Park and Creffield. Across these areas, design control on rooflines, materials and frontages is exacting, and in conservation areas planning permission is needed for essentially all residential extensions and minor alterations.

Ealing's headline Article 4 control is about tenure rather than extensions: in October 2024 the council made directions removing the permitted development right to convert a house (use class C3) into a small HMO (C4), so an HMO conversion now needs planning permission. Six of its conservation areas carry further Article 4 restrictions on householder permitted development. The detailed design rules for extensions live in the council's SPD 4 (Residential Extensions), which also covers basement development and conservation-area work.

Beyond the protected estates, Ealing's long runs of Victorian and Edwardian terraces — Hanwell, West Ealing, Acton and Northfields — are classic side-return, rear-extension and loft territory, and much of that stock keeps permitted development rights. The address-level check is what separates a prior-approval project from a full application in a conservation area, and confirms whether an HMO or other Article 4 control bites.

Policy detail lives in the Ealing local plan and applications are submitted via the Ealing planning portal.