We aim to help secure the highest possible design quality of buildings and spaces, and to preserve and enhance the historic environment.
Urban Design
Urban design is about shaping cities, towns and villages to be attractive places. This includes how places look but it also includes how they function.
Urban design involves the design of buildings, groups of buildings and the spaces between them as well as the relationship between all three. Urban design also considers how places are connected and how people move between buildings and places.
Good urban design ensures developments complement their settings. This is often achieved through things like detailing, materials and colours, the location of access points and windows but also the management of heights, scale and massing of development.
The council encourages good urban design in a variety of ways, including design policy and guidance and providing design advice to applications and pre-application enquiries.
Conservation and Heritage
Hounslow has a heritage that is rich in architectural and historic character. Many parts of the borough are designated as conservation areas and listed buildings . We have around 26 conservation areas and around 540 listed buildings in the borough.
Hounslow is currently in the process of updating the appraisals for our conservation areas. These draft statements will be made available for public consultation. The Local List, which recognizes heritage assets of local importance, is also being updated. The update of the Local List will be open to public consultation and contribution.
We have a legal duty to conserve and enhance the significance of our heritage assets under the Planning (Listed Buildings & Conservation Areas) Act 1990 and the National Planning Policy Framework published in 2012.
Article 4 directions
In certain conservation areas where Article 4 directions are in force, there are additional controls in place, requiring a planning application to be made for work which would otherwise have been "permitted development".
Such works include replacement windows and doors, recovering roofs, works to chimneys, painting or covering elevations in another material; hard standings, new boundary treatments (for example, walls or fences).
Find out more about Article 4(2) directions for Bedford Park Conservation Area and Gunnersbury Park Conservation Area on our Article 4 directions page
Trees in conservation areas or covered by a Tree Preservation Order (TPO)
Find out how to apply to work on a tree by visiting the planning portal.
