Extending in Warwick starts with two questions that decide everything after them: is the building listed, and is it in a conservation area.
Out at Warwick Gates, Woodloes Park and on the interwar housing the answer to both is usually no, and this becomes straightforward work. A single storey rear extension of up to four metres on a detached house or three on a semi can fall within permitted development, there is side access, and the skip goes on the drive.
In the centre it is a different proposition entirely. The plots are medieval even where the buildings are Georgian, which means narrow frontages, long thin gardens and boundaries that are close on both sides. There is rarely room for a side extension and rarely a way to get materials round the back. Conservation area status reduces the permitted development limits, and if the building is listed then consent is required as well as permission, covering the inside as much as the outside.
The long rear plots do offer something, though. There is frequently more depth available than the frontage suggests, which makes a rear extension the natural move here in the same way it is in any old market town. The constraint is getting to it, not the space itself.
On the unlisted later stock there is also the larger home extension route: up to eight metres on a detached house or six on any other, by prior approval rather than full permission, with neighbours notified and an answer in about six weeks.
Our extensions work is described in more detail there, including how the inspections fit around the build.