Where we work

Maidenhead is where the studio is based, and applications here are decided by the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. Much of the town is straightforward in planning terms: streets of interwar and post-war family houses, frequently on generous plots, where a well-argued householder application is a routine piece of work rather than a fight. Around the older core, and along parts of the river, there are conservation areas — and beyond the built-up edge the green belt begins, so the answer can change street by street.

For most owners here the question is not whether to move but how much house the plot will take. Deep rear gardens and wide side returns make extension and internal remodelling the obvious route, and the limiting factor is usually the effect on neighbours — daylight, overlooking and the scale of what is proposed at the boundary — rather than the principle of extending at all. Where a plot sits inside a conservation area or across the green-belt boundary, the strategy has to be settled before the design starts.

Ascot also falls under the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead, but the planning ground could hardly be more different. Much of the area is green belt, and the housing character is dominated by large detached houses set well back in wooded plots, where the trees are often as significant to a decision as the building.

That makes the replacement dwelling a common route here, and green belt policy is the thing to understand before anything is drawn: a replacement is judged against whether it is materially larger than the building it replaces, so the existing lawful floorspace and volume need establishing early and accurately. Trees are the other early piece of work — protected trees and their root protection areas shape both where a house can sit and how it can be built.

Henley is decided by South Oxfordshire District Council, and it is one of the more tightly held places we work. A large part of the town lies within a conservation area, there are a great many listed buildings, and the town sits on the edge of the Chilterns National Landscape — the designation formerly known as the Chilterns AONB.

Work here is won on detail and evidence rather than ambition alone. Materials are scrutinised closely, roofscape and the view of a proposal from the street carry real weight, and pre-application discussion is usually worth the time it costs. Contemporary work does get consented in Henley; what tends to fail is a scheme that has not read the conservation-area appraisal before picking up a pen.

Beaconsfield is decided by Buckinghamshire Council, the unitary authority that replaced the district councils across the county in 2020. The town divides into two quite different planning propositions: the historic Old Town, with its listed buildings and conservation-area coverage, and the twentieth-century New Town, where substantial detached houses sit on large plots. Green belt covers much of the surrounding countryside.

In the New Town the questions are typically about scale — how far a house can extend, whether replacing it outright is the better answer, and what the street will accept at the front. In the Old Town they are about fabric and setting, where consent depends on materials, proportion and the effect on neighbouring heritage rather than on floor area.

Windsor is the most constrained of the five, and again the authority is the Royal Borough of Windsor & Maidenhead. Extensive conservation-area coverage, a large number of listed buildings and the setting of the castle mean that a great deal of the town is sensitive, and views are a material consideration in a way they are not in most places.

None of that makes good work impossible — it makes preparation decisive. Applications here need the policy read first, the materials named precisely rather than described as matching, and a case made in writing that an officer can lift straight into their report. Outside the town, the green belt applies, and the strategy changes accordingly.