Ask three people whether roof work needs "permission" and you will hear three answers, because several different regimes are involved and each asks its own question. Building Regulations ask whether the finished work is safe, structurally sound and energy efficient. Planning asks whether the outside of the building changes in a way the council must approve. Heritage rules protect listed buildings and conservation areas. Highway law governs the scaffold, and wildlife law covers whatever lives in the roof.
Most routine jobs, such as mending a leak, replacing a few tiles or renewing the covering with the same material, trigger very little. Some jobs trigger several rules at once, and a few are caught by rules that catch people out, such as the extra weight of a new covering or a chimney breast coming out.
The sections below follow the order in which a job tends to meet each rule. We explain what consent is needed and handle the Building Regulations notification where the work is notifiable, but the decisions rest with you and the councils, and this guide is not legal advice. Where a rule needs more room, it links on to the page that covers it.
The Building Regulations test for a re-roof
Begin with the Planning Portal's yardstick. Repairing or re-covering a roof stays outside the building control net only while two measures hold together: under a quarter of the whole building envelope is affected (counted together: the walls, the floor, the roof, plus every window, door, roof window and rooflight), and under half of the roof itself. Cross either measure and an application follows. A job has to pass both tests, so a quick sum on the survey day tells you which side of the line it falls.
Some triggers ignore the percentages. The Portal lists structural alteration, a new covering whose behaviour in a fire differs significantly from the old, and a covering that makes the roof 15 per cent or more heavier. Approved Document A phrases the weight rule as an increase of more than 15 per cent. The two wordings are very close, so a roof that lands near the line is best settled by a surveyor or structural engineer. Concrete over clay, or tile over slate, is where this bites. Our pages on re-roofing and Building Regulations and heavier roof coverings carry the detail.
Who signs the work off
A job can be signed off by the council's own team, or by a private firm on the register of building control approvers, the title that has applied since 6 April 2024. Adur and Worthing run a single team from Worthing Town Hall in Chapel Road. Its service notes tell owners to inform building control as stages of the work are reached, state that design advice is no longer something the team provides, and add VAT to fees other than regularisation fees. Where a job is notifiable we handle the notification and explain what each stage needs.
Part L and the insulation that can follow a roof job
Part L is the energy section of the Regulations, and for roofs it works through the idea of a thermal element. Approved Document L Volume 1 counts two kinds of work as renovating that element. One is stripping the roof down to bare timbers and building it up again; the other is laying a new waterproof membrane over a flat roof. Once the renovation covers more than 50 per cent of the element's surface, or amounts to a major renovation of more than 25 per cent of the external envelope, the entire element must then meet the current insulation limits. A slate or tile re-cover that stays below both limits does not set the upgrade off.
| Part in an existing dwelling | Limit in Table 4.2 |
|---|---|
| New or replacement roof | 0.15 W/m²K |
| Roof window | 1.4 W/m²K, or an energy rating of Band B |
| Rooflight | 2.2 W/m²K |
The figures are from the 2021 edition with 2023 amendments. A roof window sits in the line of the slope, whereas a rooflight is a glazed unit raised on a kerb or upstand, and each has its own limit, which is the point people mix up most. Where a part is replaced rather than upgraded, the document's floor is the performance of whatever came out.
For you, this comes down to what the survey records: the share of the roof being worked on, the insulation already in place, and whether the job passes a threshold. The written quote follows once those answers are in, and it is worth asking early whether insulation will form part of the job, since it changes both the scope and the total. Our guides to insulation when re-roofing and to roof windows go through the options.
Loft rooms, chimneys and conservatories: jobs with their own triggers
Some roof jobs pull in a different part of the Regulations altogether. A new loft room is the best known. For a house whose upper floor is no more than 4.5m above ground, Approved Document B asks that each habitable room has either an escape window, an external door, or a direct route onto a protected stair. A window qualifies when it opens to at least 0.33 square metres, measures 450mm or more both ways and has its lowest openable edge no higher than 1100mm above the floor. Past 4.5m other provisions apply, and a loft room above two full floors calls for a protected stair, so the stair matters as much as the window.
Chimney work has rules of its own. The Planning Portal's guidance on chimney breasts is blunt: they form part of the structure, so Building Regulations approval is always needed when one comes out, though the rules can differ when it is just the stack above the roofline coming down. If the chimney is built into a wall shared with next door, GOV.UK counts removing it as notifiable work: your neighbour must be given notice at least 2 months before you start and not more than a year before, and silence cannot be read as agreement.
Flues and conservatory roofs
A chimney that serves a wood burner or other solid fuel appliance follows Approved Document J. Where the flue emerges within 600mm of the ridge, for instance, it should finish at least 600mm above the ridge. The "3-2-10 rule" quoted on some websites comes from American practice and carries no weight here. Swapping a glazed or polycarbonate conservatory roof for a solid one counts as material alteration work, and an application to building control has to go in. Our pages on chimney repairs and conservatory roof replacement explain each job.
Planning, Article 4 and listed buildings in outline
Planning runs on a separate track and asks a separate question. Section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 excludes works that leave a building's outward appearance materially unchanged, which is why re-covering in matching materials is not usually development at all. Two situations alter that: the listed building and the Article 4 street.
Class C of the permitted development rules covers roof windows and other roof alterations. It can still operate inside a conservation area or the National Park, subject to conditions; one is that any window set in a side slope has to be obscure-glazed. Dormers come under Class B, which does not apply on article 2(3) land, a term that takes in conservation areas and the South Downs National Park. Closer to home, the Article 4 directions for Western Row, Warwick Place, Warwick Gardens, Kingston Buci and Old Shoreham each withdraw rights that reach roofs, in different ways. Which of these applies depends on the address, so the safest first step is a short call or email to the planning team.
Heritage controls
Work that affects the character of a listed building needs listed building consent, and doing it without is an offence. Churches still used for worship by five named bodies (the Church of England under its faculty system, plus Methodist, Baptist, Roman Catholic and United Reformed congregations) are covered by the ecclesiastical exemption instead, while closure ends the exemption, and a scheduled monument is never covered by it: that needs scheduled monument consent. Inside the National Park the South Downs National Park Authority is the planning authority. Our planning permission guide takes each case in turn.
Scaffold licences, asbestos and waste
Scaffolding that obstructs a public highway must be authorised by a licence in writing from the highway authority (section 169 of the Highways Act 1980), and breaching that rule is an offence. For Worthing and Adur the authority is West Sussex County Council, whose current page wants 10 working days from application to the date the scaffold goes up. The scaffolders make the application. Brighton and Hove looks after its own highway licences, so the paperwork changes at the city boundary.
On asbestos, the Health and Safety Executive's advice is to assume that a property built or renovated before 2000 contains it. Corrugated asbestos cement sheeting on a garage can be lifted by non-licensed workers if they handle it carefully and keep it in one piece. Let it break into dust, or damage it substantially, and the job turns into notifiable non-licensed work, with notice required before it starts. Insulating board made with asbestos can sit behind old external soffits, most of that removal falls in the licensed category, and the board is hard to tell from a safe one by eye. Waste from a home goes out double-wrapped and labelled, with a consignment note.
Waste carriers and spray foam
Anyone carrying construction waste counts as an upper-tier carrier, with a registration that renews every 3 years. Foam sprayed on the underside of a roof raises further questions. The RICS consumer guide (March 2023) says it can colour a surveyor's view of value, and in November 2024 some lenders said they would decline homes that have it, with others looking at each case. See spray foam insulation removal for the options.
Wildlife, consumer rights and who to ask
Bats, their roosts and nests in use are protected by law, and work such as repairing or replacing a roof can disturb them.
Consumer law adds a few rights. A contract signed at your own home carries a 14 day cancellation period under the Consumer Contracts Regulations 2013. Work begins during the 14 days only on your written request, and the right does not extend to an urgent repair visit that you requested. The Consumer Rights Act 2015 requires reasonable care and skill, with repeat performance among the remedies. Keep any written guarantee you are given with the building control papers.
Matching the question to the office
It saves time to send each question to the right place. Building Regulations questions go to the building control team at Adur & Worthing Councils or to a registered approver. Planning questions go to the councils' shared planning team, or to the National Park Authority for houses within the Park boundary. Listed building questions go to the relevant council's conservation team. Scaffold licences are the scaffold firm's responsibility, though it is sensible to ask whether the quote covers licence fees and waste carriage, as both can sit outside a verbal figure. We, for our part, set out which rules touch your roof and notify building control when the work calls for it.
Three related questions have guides of their own: whether home insurance covers roof damage, whether a government grant can pay for a new roof and what roof work typically costs. The home page lists the whole range of jobs we take on around Worthing and nearby towns, and every survey leads to our written quote. Keep each exchange in writing, which makes any later question about what was agreed much easier to answer.
