Ealing homeowners ask this question all the time — and it's a reasonable one. But the honest answer is that your chances of getting planning permission approved depend on factors most people don't even know to check. WhatCanIBuild exists precisely because the answer is almost never straightforward.
The short version
- Approval odds in Ealing vary significantly depending on your street, property type, and project
- Conservation areas and Article 4 directions affect many Ealing postcodes — and most homeowners don't know if they apply to them
- What got approved next door may not be approved for you
Ealing isn't one place — it's dozens of different planning environments
W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB2 — these postcodes cover enormously different planning landscapes. A rear extension that sails through in one part of Acton might face serious scrutiny a few streets away. Ealing has a significant number of conservation areas, and the rules that apply within them are not the same rules that apply outside them. Most homeowners don't realise they're in one until they've already made assumptions about what they can build.
Then there are Article 4 directions. These are designations that remove certain permitted development rights — meaning things you'd normally be allowed to do without any permission at all suddenly require a full application. Ealing has several areas where Article 4 directions apply to front elevations and boundaries. Do you know whether your property is affected? Most people don't.
Your project type changes everything
It's not just about where you live — it's about what you want to build. A loft conversion, a rear extension, a side return, a new outbuilding — each one sits differently against Ealing's planning history and each one carries its own set of variables. The council's typical decision window is around 8 weeks, but that's just the clock. What matters is what happens during those 8 weeks when an officer reviews your specific proposal against your specific site.
Have similar projects been approved on your street? Have any been refused? What were the reasons? These are the questions that actually predict your outcome — and they're not questions most homeowners think to ask before submitting.
Don't assume precedent means permission
Just because your neighbour got approval for something similar doesn't mean you will. Slight differences in plot size, proximity to boundaries, or even which conservation area sub-zone you're in can produce completely different decisions.
The variables you don't know you're missing
Listed buildings. Flood zones. Tree preservation orders. Ealing has all of these, scattered across the borough in ways that aren't obvious from the street. Any one of them can change your application from straightforward to complex — or from approvable to very difficult — without you having any idea they were relevant.
This is where most homeowners get tripped up. They focus on what they want to build and assume the rules are simple and universal. They're not. The combination of constraints on your specific property is what determines your real approval odds — and that combination is different for almost every address.
The best way to understand what applies to your property — and what's actually been approved or refused nearby — is to use WhatCanIBuild. It looks at your address specifically, not just the borough in general, and surfaces the approval patterns for projects like yours in your immediate area.
Knowing you're in a conservation area is one thing. Knowing what that actually means for a rear extension on your specific plot, based on what Ealing's planning officers have actually decided on nearby applications — that's the information that changes how you approach this.
WhatCanIBuild gives you that picture before you spend £258 on an application fee and eight weeks finding out the hard way.
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