Esher · Elmbridge · Surrey
Victorian terraces, Blair Imrie houses, inter-war estates and a 1970s lakeside group, each described in the council's own documents.
Send us the address and a note of the changes you have in mind. We read the council's documents for that street, look at the ground and flood position for the plot, and measure the house before any layout is settled.
Serving Esher from our Hampstead studio · NW3 6DN
020 7101 3168
Services in Esher
01 Whole-house work
Refurbish an Esher house as one coordinated job, from roof coverings and windows to wiring, heating and changes to the plan. Where the street is a conservation area, windows, roofs and front boundaries are written into the brief as separate items.
02 Rear and side additions
Add space to a detached, semi-detached or terraced Esher house at the back or the side. We settle the planning route first, whether conservation area, Green Belt edge or neither, and design to it.
03 Kitchens and open plans
Replan a kitchen inside the house you have, or open it into the dining room once the structure is understood. The extract run, the waste and any new circuits are settled on paper before a single cabinet is picked.
04 Bathrooms and en-suites
Replace a bathroom, or add an en-suite in a new position, once the drainage falls and the route for extracted air are settled. Floors, stairs and joinery elsewhere in the house are protected while the room is stripped.
05 Roof space
Convert the roof of an Esher house where its form, its conservation area status and the escape route through the house allow it. We begin with the roof timbers and the stair, then weigh rooflights against dormers.
06 Below ground
Dig a basement under an Esher house only when the flood zone, groundwater and ground conditions for that plot are known. The design follows a site investigation, an engineer's scheme and the council's flood guidance.
Esher homes
The borough's Core Strategy groups Esher with the suburban settlement areas that are primarily residential in character, and the 2012 companion guide the council published for the town finds that its housing predominantly consists of large detached houses in a very high quality setting.
The 2021 Census figures for Esher ward, the ward that carries the town's name, count 3,583 households, of which 1,469 lived in detached, 849 in semi-detached and 491 in terraced accommodation, and 605 in purpose-built blocks of flats. The Core Strategy's own description of Esher says that large detached houses dominate, with only 25% of units terraced or flatted.
The age of a house usually tells you which wave of building it belongs to. The conservation area appraisal records that Park Road was laid out before 1868 and lined with compact terraces by 1894/5, that Wolsey Road, Wolsey Grove and Park Square went up between 1868 and 1894/5, and that Clive Road was built as an enclave between 1925 and 1935 in the former grounds of Clive House. Most of the Esher Place and Claremont estates were filled with large detached houses between 1912 and 1938, which turned a country village into the centre of a commuter suburb.
Park Road is a straight, narrow street hemmed in by terraces on both sides; Wolsey Road is wider, with semi-detached houses behind small front gardens. The 2008 appraisal recorded canted bays with the upper windows lined up above them, four-pane sashes and a few surviving horned sashes.
George Blair Imrie designed every original house on Clive Road, a private cul-de-sac reached from Lammas Lane, and the Claremont Park and Clare Hill estate was largely built to his designs as well. On Clive Road, brown brick in Flemish bond, leaded casements and handmade clay tiles tie the group together.
Esher Place is a 1930s extension north of the centre, with large houses in generous plots. Lower Green, separated from the town by Sandown Park, is mostly two-storey inter-war or post-war housing, some of it terraced, and buildings around West End's green seldom rise above two and a half storeys.
Off Copsem Lane, about 1km south of the town, sixteen detached houses of the 1970s by the architect Royston Summers stand around a lake. They share a modular system, yet no two are the same.
Sources: Elmbridge Borough Council: Elmbridge Core Strategy; Elmbridge Borough Council: Design and Character SPD companion guide - Esher (April 2012); Office for National Statistics (Nomis): Census 2021, TS044 Accommodation type (households), Elmbridge wards; Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher Conservation Area Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (endorsed February 2008); Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area character appraisal and management plan; Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area
Approvals
Policy that runs across the whole borough, such as how the Green Belt treats extensions, where the local plan stands and what the SFRA says about basements, sits on our Elmbridge page. Below are the four questions we answer for an Esher address before anything is drawn.
Which council handles a planning application for an Esher house?
Elmbridge Borough Council until 31 March 2027; East Surrey Council from 1 April 2027. On vesting day the new council assumes every local council service; up to that day the present councils keep working as usual.
Is the house in a conservation area, or listed?
To see whether a house falls inside a conservation area, the council points owners to its My Neighbourhood map, and an application within one usually has to include a Heritage Statement. Listing applies to the interior of a building too, so internal work to a listed house can need consent.
Who approves the work under the Building Regulations?
Elmbridge Building Control Services (EBCS), for Elmbridge Borough Council, until 31 March 2027, and from 1 April 2027 the provider named by East Surrey Council. Owners may instead hire an approver registered in the private sector, and the Building Regulations govern the building work whatever its planning position.
Does the Party Wall Act come into it?
Work at the boundary line, cutting into a party wall, or an excavation that goes deeper than a neighbour's foundations close by all have to be notified to that neighbour first. The party wall process is quite separate from planning and building regulations.
Sources: Surrey councils (Future Surrey hub, linked from Elmbridge home page): East Surrey Council (Future Surrey LGR hub); Elmbridge Borough Council: About conservation areas; Elmbridge Borough Council: Listed and locally listed buildings; Elmbridge Borough Council: Building control; GOV.UK: Building regulations approval; GOV.UK: Party walls and building work (printable guide)
Local policy
Centred on the medieval core of the town, it gained three further extensions on 27 February 2008. The appraisal endorsed that year split it into five character areas and counted 25 listed buildings at that date; St George's Church is listed at Grade I.
A semi-rural village looking over a green with ponds and part of West End Common, its buildings mostly unpretentious former farmworkers' cottages. The designation statement says Green Belt policy holds the village's edge and that small-scale changes to the cottages have often been permitted development.
Royston Summers' 1970s modular houses around a lake. Its appraisal treats every one of the sixteen as a significant unlisted building, and the Esher advisory committee covers Lakeside Drive too.
By the council's 2024 flood assessment, 80% of the Esher settlement area is Flood Zone 1, 13% Flood Zone 2 and 2% Flood Zone 3, while 5%, the rural land beside the River Mole west of West End, is functional floodplain (Flood Zone 3b). The town centre, Claremont Park and Esher Common stand on high land.
Open land frames the town. The Esher appraisal lists Sandown Park Race Course, Littleworth Common, Arbrook Common, Moore Place Golf Course and Claremont Landscape Garden, and says these commons and their Green Belt designation are what limit Esher's growth. Whether a given house sits inside the Green Belt is settled for the address; the test the council applies to extensions there is explained on our Elmbridge page.
Two rivers shape the flood picture. The Core Strategy gives the River Rythe a medium risk of flooding, and the SFRA holds records of fluvial flooding from it on Hare Lane, Raleigh Drive and Littleworth Road. On the Mole, embankments and flood walls run along both banks from West End downstream as part of the Lower Mole flood alleviation scheme, and the SFRA notes that the September 1968 flood hit Esher and Molesey badly.
Sources: Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher conservation area; Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher Conservation Area Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (endorsed February 2008); Elmbridge Borough Council: West End conservation area; Elmbridge Borough Council: West End (Esher) conservation area designation statement; Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area; Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area character appraisal and management plan; Elmbridge Borough Council: Evidence page (SFRA, Green Belt reviews); Elmbridge Borough Council: Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, April 2024 (AECOM); Elmbridge Borough Council: Elmbridge Core Strategy
Building fabric
On the High Street and Church Street the appraisal finds Georgian vernacular buildings of local stock brick, often rendered, with high-pitched or mansard clay-tiled roofs, next to mid-Victorian ones with low-pitched slate roofs and large four-pane sashes. Our survey notes which original windows and roof coverings remain before anything is specified.
The appraisal found the front gardens and boundaries of Park Road and Wolsey Road largely retained, probably because they are too small to convert for parking. We plan skips and deliveries around that rather than across the frontage.
The appraisal found the original Clive Road houses remarkably unaltered but very sensitive to small changes of detail; it asks that new windows repeat the original leaded-light design. Every window, door and extension drawing we make for the road starts there.
In Esher Place most houses run to two or two and a half storeys, often with attic rooms lit by dormers or rooflights, and tree cover gives most roads a woodland character. Roof space is frequently in use already, so we inspect what has been done to it before planning more.
Lakeside Drive's houses sit on sulphate-resisting concrete foundations, with engineering brick to just above the lake's water level, purple multi-stock facing brick above, and a parapet hiding a flat roof. The appraisal names a pitched roof, render or painted brick as changes that would harm the whole group.
Many of the cottages from the mid-nineteenth century still show Victorian characteristics, and the designation statement records the village changing gradually as cottages are extended and altered. We treat each cottage's joinery and roof as part of the group around the green.
Sources: Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher Conservation Area Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (endorsed February 2008); Elmbridge Borough Council: Design and Character SPD companion guide - Esher (April 2012); Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area character appraisal and management plan; Elmbridge Borough Council: West End (Esher) conservation area designation statement
On site
Traffic is a site constraint in the centre. The appraisal calls the High Street one of the main feeder routes to the A3 and Claremont Lane a busy link to the M25, and the companion guide notes heavy through traffic on the Portsmouth Road (A307). For an address on those roads we agree loading points and delivery times with the client and neighbours before the site is set up.
Clive Road is a private cul-de-sac, surfaced in gravel with grass verges in place of kerbs, while the road at Lakeside Drive is an adopted highway looked after by the county highways department: Surrey County Council until 31 March 2027; East Surrey Council from 1 April 2027. We establish which applies at the first visit and agree access and protection for verges and surfaces before scaffold or skips are booked.
A new crossover needs approval from the highway authority, Surrey County Council until 31 March 2027; East Surrey Council from 1 April 2027, as well as from the planning authority, and applications are accepted from the freeholder alone. Leave hedges, walls and trees in place until the crossover is confirmed; the Design Code then asks for hardstanding used for parking to be permeable.
Inside the Esher conservation area, the appraisal counts wider driveways in artificial materials and lost front walls among the threats to its character, so we keep existing boundaries in the design unless there is a clear reason to change them.
Sources: Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher Conservation Area Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (endorsed February 2008); Elmbridge Borough Council: Design and Character SPD companion guide - Esher (April 2012); Elmbridge Borough Council: Lakeside Drive conservation area character appraisal and management plan; Surrey County Council: Vehicle crossovers or dropped kerbs (Surrey County Council); Elmbridge Borough Council: Elmbridge Design Code 2024 (SPD)
Scope
We price a project once the house has been measured and the permissions route is known, never from a postcode or a photograph.
A measured record of every floor, the roof and the plot, with photographs of joinery, plasterwork and finishes that ought to stay.
Whether the work needs planning permission, listed building consent, a flood risk assessment, party wall notices or none of these.
Which walls carry load, how openings are supported, what the foundations need and how the roof or basement structure works.
The finishes, fittings and appliances, and which rooms must stay in use for the household during the build.
The quote follows the drawings and specification, itemised by trade and by room, with anything that cannot be known until the house is opened listed on its own line.
Your brief
Send the address, photographs of the front, the back and each room in question, plus whatever plans, surveys or planning decisions you already hold.
We go round the house together, check the roof, drainage and boundaries, and note what the conservation area, Green Belt or flood position may ask of the design.
A measured survey comes first, then sketch options, then the drawings the council, building control and the engineer each need.
We make the applications, serve any party wall notices, and give you an itemised quotation against the final drawings and specification.
Our Hampstead base, serving Esher
Our studio is in Hampstead on Finchley Road, at NW3 6DN. We serve Esher from this office. Bring us the practical questions about your house, flat or bathroom and the result you want to achieve.
Contact the studio to discuss your brief and arrange the next step. If you already have drawings, a lease or planning correspondence, tell us what is available.
Book a free feasibility visitEsher in detail
Policy CS9 in the Core Strategy sets out the roles Esher plays and expects all new development to enhance local character, with specific attention to the West End and Esher conservation areas.
The Esher appraisal asks applicants for planning permission to provide a Design Statement, asks for accurate elevations of the surrounding buildings with new development, and expects new buildings and extensions generally to respect the scale of their neighbours. On Clive Road it singles out the original plot sizes and the spacing between houses as an important aspect of the area.
On roofs the same appraisal is precise. Dormers are common on the High Street and Church Street and occasionally appear on Clive Road, and further modest, well detailed ones may be acceptable in some circumstances; elsewhere unbroken roof slopes are part of the streetscape, and modern rooflights should be kept off front slopes where possible.
Applications made after 6 January 2025 are assessed against the borough's Design Code, adopted in April 2024, which took the place of the 2012 Design and Character SPD, and a householder application must now include a Design Code Checklist. We still read the 2012 Esher companion guide for its description of the town's sub-areas, from Esher Place to Lower Green.
The Esher designation statement places the town some four miles south-west of Kingston. Kingston upon Thames and Surbiton, across the boundary in the London Borough of Kingston upon Thames, have pages of their own, and we serve all three from the same Hampstead studio.
Outside Esher, and in London rather than Surrey: Holland Avenue, Wimbledon SW20. That completed project of ours combined a loft conversion, a double-storey extension to the rear and side, and a whole-home refurbishment, as its case study describes.
Sources: Elmbridge Borough Council: Elmbridge Core Strategy; Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher Conservation Area Character Appraisal & Management Proposals (endorsed February 2008); Elmbridge Borough Council: Design Code SPD page; Elmbridge Borough Council: Design and Character SPD companion guide - Esher (April 2012); Elmbridge Borough Council: Esher conservation area designation statement; Elmbridge Borough Council: Level 1 Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, April 2024 (AECOM); Elmbridge Borough Council: Companion Guide - Thames Ditton, Long Ditton, Hinchley Wood and Weston Green; Hampstead Renovations: Holland Avenue, Wimbledon SW20 case study
Esher questions
The council publishes separate pages for the Esher, West End (Esher) and Lakeside Drive conservation areas. The Esher one is centred on the medieval core of the town, West End is the village around its green and common, and Lakeside Drive is the group of 1970s houses off Copsem Lane. Its My Neighbourhood map will show whether your house lies within one of them, and we check the boundary ourselves before any drawing is made.
The appraisal says the commons around Esher carry a Green Belt designation that limits the town's growth, and West End's designation statement says Green Belt policy controls the village's outward expansion. Whether a particular house is inside it is something we check for the address. If it is, extensions are weighed by whether they are disproportionate to the original building, a test our Elmbridge page explains.
Elmbridge Borough Council until 31 March 2027; East Surrey Council from 1 April 2027. From vesting day, 1 April 2027, East Surrey Council becomes responsible for every local council service, replacing the present Elmbridge arrangements and the county's services alike, and the current councils keep running as usual until that date. Until the change, enquiries about a service still go to the existing council.
The 2024 SFRA places 80% of the Esher settlement area in Flood Zone 1, 13% in Flood Zone 2, 2% in Flood Zone 3 and 5% in functional floodplain, with the ground falling west towards the River Mole floodplain. Surface water is also modelled to pond in some streets, including Lammas Lane and Wolsey Road, so we look up the precise address on the Environment Agency's planning flood map.
Elmbridge Building Control Services (EBCS), for Elmbridge Borough Council, until 31 March 2027, and from 1 April 2027 the provider named by East Surrey Council. EBCS describes itself as the first building control mutual in the UK. Owners can choose a privately registered approver instead. An extension or structural alteration may need approval, and building work must comply with the Building Regulations even where no planning permission is required.
No. A single room is surveyed, drawn and planned for building regulations in the same way as a whole house, because a new bathroom with its own plumbing, or changed wiring close to a bath or shower, can need approval, and the extract and waste still have to be designed properly.
The title plan, earlier planning decisions for the house, completion certificates issued by building control, earlier drawings or surveys, and photographs of the roof and the back of the house. Completion certificates matter later as well: work done without approval leaves a house short of the compliance certificates a buyer may ask to see.
Everything is run from our Finchley Road studio in Hampstead, NW3. Designers, surveyors and site managers travel out to the house for the first visit, the measured survey and the build itself, and the drawings, applications and sequence of trades are managed back at the studio.
The 2008 appraisal counted 25 at that date, including three monuments on the High Street, and it marked 147 more unlisted buildings that make a positive contribution. St George's Church is listed at Grade I. Listing extends to a building's internal features, so consent may be needed for work inside, although like-for-like repairs and maintenance do not need it.
Esher has an active advisory committee, which also covers Lakeside Drive, and West End has its own. The members are unpaid volunteers who give the council feedback on planning applications in their conservation areas, so a clear design statement that explains the proposal is worth the effort.
Every service page we publish for Esher.