A terrace of low painted houses in pink, white and brown on Kensington Place, with white window surrounds and small basement areas behind railings
Floor plan drawings, pencil sketches of a house, a scale rule and a protractor spread across a desk
Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels

Basement planning drawings · London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea

Basement planning drawings in Kensington and Chelsea, from £1,855 fixed

Kensington and Chelsea's Policy CD11 holds a basement to half of each garden and a single storey, needs a metre of soil over any part under a garden, and allows no excavation under a listed building. We measure your gardens against those limits on the survey, before a line is drawn.

Basementfrom £1,705 drawings + £150 survey (£1,855 total)
Council fee£548
Get your fixed feeFFP-01 · Rev A
Our fixed fee£795
Council fee, paid to your council£548
Our fee + council fee£1,343
CoverageAll 33 boroughs

Householder application fee, paid to your council at submission.

Plus the Planning Portal's own charge if the application goes through the Portal: up to £149 including VAT, depending on the application type, and some types have none (source).

Get this fee in writing

or email hello@fixedfeeplans.co.uk

No obligation. Nothing is sent until you ask; your enquiry comes to us and nowhere else.

Starts at£150
Boroughs33/33
Stages5

Photo: Robert Lamb / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0

Fixed fee, in writing

Tell us about your project

Send the postcode and what you want to build, and add photos or old plans if you have them. We reply with the fee in writing and the payment stages set out in full.

Ask for your fixed fee in writing

Name and email are required. Everything else helps us price it, but is optional.

Your enquiry goes to us and nowhere else. It is never syndicated or sold. See our privacy notice.

Two Victorian terraced houses on a London street, one painted white and one in yellow stock brick, with bay windows
A London terrace. Photo: Huy Phan / Pexels.

What Kensington and Chelsea Council asks of a basement

From the council's Local Plan 2024, Policy CD11 (Basements) (adopted Local Plan 2024 (final version, August 2024)).

  • Policy CD11 requires all basement development not to exceed a maximum of 50 per cent of each garden or open part of the site, with the unaffected garden kept in a single area; exceptions may be made on large sites. (source, checked 26 October 2026)
  • A basement must not comprise more than one storey, and must not add further basement floors where there is an extant or implemented permission for a basement or one built under permitted development rights. (source, checked 26 October 2026)
  • CD11 rules out excavation underneath a listed building, including vaults, and requires a minimum of one metre of soil above any part of the basement beneath a garden. (source, checked 26 October 2026)
  • Every basement must include a sustainable drainage system retained thereafter, and be protected from sewer flooding by a suitable pumped device. (source, checked 26 October 2026)
  • The plan says a single storey is one that cannot be subdivided in the future to create additional floors, generally about 3 to 4 metres floor to ceiling, and that basement extent is measured as gross external area. (source, checked 26 October 2026)

What Kensington and Chelsea basement drawings have to show

A Kensington and Chelsea basement set starts with the garden measured as the council measures it: front, rear and side each assessed on its own, the basement taken as gross external area, and the half left untouched shown as one continuous piece. We dimension both figures on the plan so the 50 per cent test can be checked at a glance.

The section then shows one storey only, with the metre of soil over every part under the garden, and the lightwells drawn back to what the street already has. Where the house is listed we stop before the drawing stage, because CD11 does not allow digging beneath it at all.

PS2 · at a glance

Kensington and Chelsea: 664 householder decisions

Kensington and Chelsea
Approvals, prior approvals included93.7%

622 of 664 granted. London: 85.8%.

Decided within 8 weeks92%

252 of 274 applications, prior approvals excluded.

Source: MHCLG PS2, 1 July 2025 to 30 June 2026. Dark tick: London.
Two hands holding a printed floor plan over a desk of drawings, with a pen and notebook beside it
Checking the drawings with you before anything goes to the council. Photo: Tima Miroshnichenko / Pexels.

What it costs in Kensington and Chelsea

  • Basement planning drawings: from £1,705 drawings + £150 survey (£1,855 total), plus £548 to Kensington and Chelsea Council.
  • Householder application fee, paid to your council; basement impact and structural reports are by others.

Basement planning drawings across London · Kensington and Chelsea planning rules · every price

Answers

Kensington and Chelsea basement questions

How big can a basement be in Kensington and Chelsea?
No more than 50 per cent of each garden or open part of the site, and no more than one storey, under Policy CD11 of the Local Plan 2024. The council measures front, rear and side gardens separately, counts the basement as gross external area, and wants the untouched half kept as one area. Larger sites can be treated as exceptions.
Can I dig a basement under a listed building in Kensington and Chelsea?
No. Policy CD11 says basement development must not involve excavation underneath a listed building, and that includes its vaults. Where a listed house has a garden, any basement there must still meet the 50 per cent, one storey and one metre of soil rules, and the heritage tests in national policy.
Can I add a second basement level in Kensington and Chelsea?
Not where a basement already exists or has permission. CD11 says no further basement floors may be added where there is an extant or implemented planning permission for a basement, or one built under permitted development rights. A single storey is defined as one that cannot later be split into two floors, about 3 to 4 metres high.

Start with £150

Your fixed fee is already on this page.

Tell us the postcode and what you want to build. We confirm the fee in writing and book the survey.

Get my fixed fee020 7131 9703
01
Measured surveyWithin five working days
£150
02
Existing drawingsThe building as it stands
£175
03
Proposed drawingsYour scheme, revised until right
£225
04
Planning application packForms, statements, OS plans
£125
05
Submission and agent servicePortal submission, queries handled
£120
Total, planning application£795
Get my fixed fee