Listed Buildings

If the property is a listed building or in a conservation area, any work you do on it will be restricted, and you will have to follow certain guidelines.

The scope for any structural change could be extremely limited and you’ll need to discuss any proposals with your local planning authority.

You may also have to get consent from English Heritage before work can begin. Commissioning a Building Survey is a must for a Listed Building.

If you wish to alter, extend or demolish a listed building in a way that affects its character as a building of special interest, you must first obtain Listed Building Consent from your local planning authority.

Listed status covers a whole building, both inside and out. Common works requiring consent might include the replacement of windows or doors, knocking down internal walls, painting over brickwork or altering fireplaces. It is always advisable to get advice from the conservation officer at your local authority to get a better idea about what it means in your particular case.

Listed Building Consent is administered by your local planning authority or Council. When a Council considers whether to grant or to refuse an application it must take into account the desirability of preserving the building, its setting and those features which make it special. Therefore you should consider these factors when planning proposed changes to your property.

A good starting point is to ask your local conservation officer to outline what might be acceptable and whether your ideas may need to be adapted to make them more likely to succeed.  These simple steps could save you a lot of time and money. The consent form is available from your local authority and applying for listed building consent is free.

As you will need to provide detailed drawings with the form, it is often easier to get an Engineer or architect to draw up the plans and submit them for you. The application is even more likely to be successful if they have previous experience of working with listed buildings.