Labour’s Plan for Higher Roof Extensions

The new Labour Government have revealed proposals that will encourage home owners to extend their property upwards by making it much harder for Council’s to reject planning permission. Currently, permission can be rejected on account of an additional storey simply being too high or because neighbours do not have additional stories.

The vast majority on London’s housing stock is Victorian, followed by 1930s builds and one of the most popular and cost effective types of extension is the loft extension. Loft extensions are formed by the construction of a dormer at the rear with roof windows at the front and are often done under permitted development providing the extension is within the curtilage of the property (usually means within the party parapet walls and not raising them, but the varies from borough to borough). There are very few places that allow a frontal extension, with Craven Park Road in Tottenham being the only road this author is aware of:

There will be a doubling of fees (presumably across the board rather than just ‘new’ upward extensions) to allow Councils to hire more staff.

On the face of it, this change could result in a great deal number of extensions but could also see more neighbours come to blows over huge ‘monstrosities’ that dominate the street and block out light. There is however a practical and construction consideration that would see many proposals denied.

The raising of a roof and the accompanying parapets will need to consider the functionality of chimneys as you simply cannot raise the parapet wall and leave the neighbour’s chimney stack at its original lower high (this would fall foul of Building Regulations if the chimney is to remain functional). Either the full stack or the neighbour’s stack will need to be raised above the new roof height or the neighbour will need to agree to cap it off, meaning that the have an effective veto by not agreeing to this.

Issues such as these would need to be considered by party wall surveyors as the raising of a parapet, along with new structural beams and the exposing of the roof all fall under the Party Wall Act.

There is also the factor of cost which will see the majority of property owners continue with more traditional loft extension.

Here at Peter Barry, we work with owners on hundreds of loft conversion projects every year, acting as their party wall surveyor. Please contact us either by phone or email if you are planning a project and would like some free and impartial advice.