Building work in Ealing: area guide

Ealing Council is the planning and building control authority for Ealing, which covers W5, W3, W7, W13, UB1, UB2, UB5 and UB6 and takes in Acton, Southall and Hanwell. This is our area guide to building work in the borough; for whole-house refurbishment go to Home renovation in Ealing.

Ealing has around 149,900 homes on the Council Tax list: 42% post-war, 30% interwar and 28% predate 1919, with 54% flats and 46% houses. VOA Council Tax stock of properties, March 2025, for all 41 statistical areas in Ealing. Counts rounded by the VOA.

Planning and building control in Ealing

What Ealing Council publishes about building work in the borough, with each point linked to the council page it comes from:

• Ealing Council says the borough has 30 conservation areas. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing Council says six conservation areas are subject to further restrictions on development under Article 4 of the General Permitted Development Order. ealing.gov.uk
• In the Bedford Park conservation area an Article 4 direction means planning permission is also required for the enlargement, improvement or other alteration of a dwelling house. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing Council says almost 600 structures and sites in the borough are on the National Heritage List for England. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing's 30 minute appointment with a planner costs £311.40 including VAT for verbal advice only, or £386.14 with written advice. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing Council runs its own building control service and says it will continue to act as the service provider of last resort when no alternative provider can be found. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing Council says it currently has severe backlogs with customers who have reverted to its building control after their private sector company failed. ealing.gov.uk
• From 1 February 2026 Ealing building control site inspections are available on Monday, Wednesday and Friday. ealing.gov.uk
• Ealing's SPD 4 says that if permission is granted for a basement, the council will require a method statement on structural and construction matters. ealing.gov.uk

With 54% of Ealing's homes flats, the lease comes first on many jobs. Flats have no householder permitted development, so an extension or most external changes to a flat need planning permission from Ealing Council as well as the freeholder's consent. The 46% that are houses keep the householder rights within the size limits, and in a conservation area a single-storey rear extension survives unless an Article 4 direction removes it. Taking out a wall or a chimney breast is building regulations work, not planning, unless the building is listed.

Ealing covers W3, W5, W7, W13, UB1, UB2, UB5 and UB6, and its housing spans more than a century of building: Edwardian villas around Ealing Common and W13, Victorian terraces through Acton, interwar semis out towards Hanwell, Greenford and Southall, and a large post-war share of flats and estate housing. Many of the biggest houses were divided into flats last century, so establish which you have. In a flat, sound and fire separation come before any bathroom renovation or kitchen renovation. A house put back together as one home is a layout job.

Divided villas and their separation before the layout

The villas around Ealing Common and Northfields are substantial: three storeys, bay windows front and back, wide hallways and roofs with real volume in them. Where one has been split into flats, opening it up reveals the shortcuts taken at the time: thin partitions between dwellings, boxed-in soil pipes and a stairwell with no proper fire separation.

Those set the order. Part E for sound between flats, Part B for the protected escape route and Part P for the electrics are settled before a new bathroom goes onto that soil pipe. Reinstating a single dwelling is structural alteration work: the added partitions come out, duplicated services are resolved and the layout returns to the original plan. An engineer designs any opening and we build strictly to it.

Popular starting points in Ealing: kitchen renovation in Ealing, house extensions across Ealing, builders in London and Renovations That Add Value.