Finished single-storey rear extension with a tiled pitched roof and bi-fold doors onto the garden

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Areas We Cover

Where we work

Areas We Cover

Space Up builds across South East London, north Kent and the London Borough of Croydon. Seven towns have a page of their own, because the council you fall under changes what you are allowed to build and what the job costs before a single brick moves.

10/10

Checkatrade, 95 reviews

5.0

Google, 14 reviews

2013

Building since

500+

Projects completed

Towns with a page of their own

Each of these has a page because we have finished work near it and because people there are searching for this kind of job. Each page carries that town’s planning position, its real permit costs, and photographs from jobs we completed nearby. No two pages share a photograph.

Bexleyheath

DA6, DA7. London Borough of Bexley

Interwar semis on generous plots, and a council whose only Article 4 direction is about shops rather than houses. Most rear extensions here are still permitted development.

Welling

DA16. London Borough of Bexley

No conservation area covers Welling itself. A skip permit is £65 for a fortnight and you or your builder can apply for it.

Sidcup

DA14, DA15. London Borough of Bexley

The same Bexley rules as Bexleyheath. The question here is usually whether the hip has to be squared off before the loft is worth having.

Erith

DA8. London Borough of Bexley

Two conservation areas cover parts of the town and four more sit within a couple of miles. Bexley has published what it will accept on an extension inside them, down to the windows.

Dartford

DA1, DA2. Dartford Borough Council and Kent

Kent, not London, so the skip and scaffold licences come from the county and are charged by the week. A lot of Dartford is newer than 1990, where permitted development rights may have been removed.

Finished kitchen extension with a dark island, pendant lights and a glazed lantern, built by Space Up in Beckenham

Orpington

BR5, BR6. London Borough of Bromley

Bromley has 47 conservation areas and an Article 4 direction on upward extensions in 16 named areas. Its skip permit is the cheapest around at £50.

Finished loft room with exposed timber beams, slatted oak panelling, carpet and a rooflight, converted by Space Up

Chislehurst

BR7. London Borough of Bromley

A conservation area covers much of the town. Inside it a dormer needs a planning application. Outside it, usually not.

Blackheath

SE3. Lewisham and Royal Greenwich

One village, two boroughs. Lewisham charges £88 for a skip and Greenwich £114, and on the Greenwich side a householder cannot apply for one at all.

Finished kitchen in a Victorian house in South Norwood, marble island, pale shaker units and a herringbone floor under a dark green ceiling

Croydon

CR0, CR2, CR7, SE25. London Borough of Croydon

Twenty-one conservation areas, and a council that withdrew its own extension design guide in 2022. A scaffold licence here is £488 for four weeks.

What changes when you cross a council boundary

Bexley, for Bexleyheath, Welling and Sidcup. Skip permit £65 for 14 days, and you or your builder can apply. No Article 4 direction affects houses: the borough’s only one covers shops in town centres. 23 conservation areas.

Bromley, for Orpington and Chislehurst. Skip permit £50 for 14 days, and you or your builder can apply. An Article 4 direction removes upward extensions of up to two storeys in 16 named areas. 47 conservation areas.

Croydon. Skip permit £78, and only a skip company can apply. A scaffold licence is a separate £488 for four weeks. The borough-wide Article 4 covers small HMOs only, and three conservation areas also restrict alterations. 21 conservation areas.

Lewisham, for Blackheath village and south. Skip permit £88 for 30 days, applied for by a registered skip company. Article 4 directions cover named streets inside the Blackheath conservation area.

Royal Greenwich, for Blackheath Park and Westcombe Park. Skip permit £114 for 30 days, approved skip companies only, and a householder cannot apply at all. No Article 4 direction is listed for these areas. 23 conservation areas.

Kent, for Dartford. Kent County Council charges by the week: £45 for seven days, applied for by the skip company. No Article 4 directions are listed on the council’s page. 6 conservation areas in Dartford borough.

Questions

Questions about where we work

01.

Why do some towns have a page and others do not?

Because a page is only worth reading if there is something true and local to put on it. Each of the seven has a completed job near enough to show photographs from, and a planning and cost position we have read from that council’s own pages. Where we cannot source something we say so on the page rather than filling the gap.

02.

Does the council really change what I can build?

Yes, and more than most people expect. In Bromley an Article 4 direction removes the right to extend upwards in sixteen named areas. In Croydon the council withdrew its own design guide for home extensions in 2022, so proposals are judged against the Local Plan instead. Inside any conservation area a side extension and a dormer stop being permitted development. The first thing we do is establish which of these applies to your address.

03.

What does a skip permit cost where I live?

It ranges from £50 in Bromley to £114 in Greenwich, and the rules differ as much as the price. In Bexley and Bromley you or your builder can apply. In Lewisham, Greenwich and Croydon only a skip company can, and in Greenwich a householder cannot apply at all. Kent charges by the week rather than by the fortnight, so four weeks of skip in Dartford is £180 against £65 in Bexley. Every figure on this page comes from that council’s own fees page and was read on 13 September 2026.

04.

Do you work outside these areas?

Yes. The nine above are the towns with a page, not a boundary. We also build in Bexley, Petts Wood, Swanley, Greenhithe, Beckenham, Bromley, Eltham, Lewisham, Greenwich, Woolwich, Plumstead, Mottingham, Grove Park, Forest Hill and across South East London. If you are a little further out, tell us where and we will say honestly whether we can run the job properly from here.

05.

Do you charge for the first visit?

No. The survey and the quote are free, and the quote is a fixed price agreed before anything starts, with the permits, the drawings and any planning fee listed separately rather than buried.

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