Most homeowners in Richmond upon Thames start by googling the application fee and stop there. But the £548 householder fee is arguably the smallest financial risk you're taking — and until you see what actually applies to your specific address, free in about a minute, you're working with an incomplete picture.
The short version
- The standard householder planning fee is £548, but that's rarely the only cost
- Richmond has some of the most layered planning constraints in London — conservation areas, flood zones, World Heritage Site buffers
- What got approved on your neighbour's house may not apply to yours
The fee is just the entry ticket
The £548 covers the council's cost to assess your application. It doesn't cover the architect or designer you'll likely need to produce drawings that satisfy Richmond's design expectations. It doesn't cover a planning consultant if your application is borderline. It doesn't cover revised drawings if you're asked to amend. And crucially, it's non-refundable — if your application is refused, you pay again to resubmit.
In a borough where the Thames Landscape Strategy adds design constraints on top of standard planning rules, and where Richmond Hill's protected views have shaped planning decisions for decades, getting the first submission wrong is an expensive mistake. Most homeowners don't realise how quickly the total cost of a refused application climbs.
Richmond's constraint map is unusually complicated
Richmond upon Thames has conservation area coverage across Richmond Hill, Kew, Petersham, Ham, Hampton, and Twickenham — meaning a large proportion of residential properties sit inside one. But being in a conservation area and knowing what that means for your specific project are very different things.
Then there's Kew Gardens. As a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the surrounding area falls under Article 2(3) designated land rules — which change what you can do without permission in ways that catch homeowners off guard. Properties near Richmond Park face their own boundary controls. Extensive flood zones along the Thames add another layer that affects both what you can build and how you need to design it.
None of these constraints work the same way on every street, or even every house on the same street. The best way to know whether your property is affected — and how those constraints interact — is to check what your specific combination of designations means for your project type.
Don't assume what worked nearby applies to you
Planning decisions in Richmond are highly site-specific. An extension approved two doors down may have been assessed under different constraints — a different conservation area character appraisal, a different flood zone boundary, or permitted development rights that don't apply to your plot.
The approval record near you tells you more than the fee ever could
The real question isn't how much it costs to apply — it's how likely you are to succeed, and what version of your project gives you the best odds. In a borough like Richmond, where design quality is scrutinised closely and where Article 4 directions have removed permitted development rights in some areas entirely, the approval rate for a given project type can vary significantly from street to street.
That's what most cost guides don't tell you. The financial risk isn't the £548 — it's submitting something that has a low chance of approval and paying multiple times before you get it right. WhatCanIBuild is built around the hard question: see the approval record for your street and what similar projects have actually achieved, no signup needed.
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