News release · For immediate use · 26 September 2026
Same extension, more than three times the price to approve: what 91 councils charge for building control
Homeowners in Camden pay £1,876 for council building control on a typical 10 to 40 m² single-storey extension. In Bridgend the same approval costs £587. Estiquote, the free UK renovation cost calculator, compared the published charges of 91 councils in England and Wales and found the typical council charges £840.
Key findings
- The typical council charges £840 including VAT for full plans approval of a 10 to 40 m² extension. About half of them (47 of 91) charge between £736 and £1,008.
- Dearest: Camden (£1,876, a single charge that also covers extensions up to 60 m²), then Islington (£1,584) and Southwark (£1,473).
- Cheapest current schedules: Bridgend (£587), Conwy (£648), Blackpool (£654) and Fylde (£660).
- London pays about 1.5 times the North. The London median is £1,113 against £737 across the North East, North West and Yorkshire. Havering, the cheapest London borough in the sample at £859, still charges more than the northern median.
- The route matters too. At 34 of the 79 councils that publish both, the building notice route costs more than full plans. Stockport charges £1,470 for a building notice against £1,050 for full plans.
- Wales is cheaper: a median of £666, against £858 in England.
Median charge by region
| Region | Median | Councils |
|---|---|---|
| London | £1,113 | 10 |
| South East | £990 | 13 |
| East of England | £922 | 8 |
| South West | £896 | 11 |
| North East | £810 | 8 |
| East Midlands | £793 | 9 |
| West Midlands | £790 | 8 |
| North West | £716 | 10 |
| Yorkshire and the Humber | £701 | 6 |
| Wales | £666 | 8 |
Comment
“Most people budget for the builder and forget the approvals. Building control is a legal requirement for an extension, and what you pay for it depends more on your postcode than on your project. Check your own council’s charges, and ask a private building control firm for a price as well.”
Estiquote
Figures for your area
Every council in the study has its own page with local building prices and that council’s own charges, for example Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol and Islington. See the full list of councils and the sortable league table.
Notes to editors
- Estiquote read each council’s published building control charges in September 2026 and recorded the full plans charge (plan plus inspection) for a single-storey extension of 10 to 40 m², including VAT. Where a schedule showed prices without VAT, 20% was added. Bands differ slightly between councils, some schedules carry no date, and a few are older than 2025; these are flagged in the data.
- Scotland and Northern Ireland use national fee scales and are reported separately.
- The full dataset is free to reuse with credit to Estiquote under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0: download the CSV.
- Estiquote is a free UK renovation cost calculator at estiquote.co.uk and an iPhone app, “Estiquote: Renovation Costs”. It is independent: it is not a builder, no firm can pay to change its figures, and it does not sell user details. Estiquote is a trading name of Labii Reatum Limited.
- Contact: support@estiquote.co.uk