Yes, for most houses in Dunstable you can, because only a few dozen buildings are listed and none of the town is in a conservation area. The typical house here is a post-war semi that nobody has thought to protect. Neighbours lodge close to a thousand planning applications a year. An extension in Dunstable is more likely to be held up by the next-door neighbour than by a heritage officer.
Historic England lists 55 buildings in and around Dunstable: two at Grade I, four at Grade II* and 49 at Grade II. Listing covers the whole building, inside and out, along with fixtures and some structures within its curtilage. Almost any change that affects its character needs listed building consent on top of any planning permission, and that includes replacing windows, removing internal walls and changing the roof covering. If you own one of the 55, the council will have a say in most changes. If you own one of the thousands of homes that are not listed, listing does not affect you.
The area also contains four scheduled monuments, the strictest form of heritage protection. Works to a scheduled monument need consent from the Secretary of State. They matter mainly if your land is next to one, and few Dunstable gardens are.
Central Bedfordshire Council received 2,195 planning applications covering the area between April 2024 and June 2026, and 997 of them came in the last twelve months. That figure includes extensions, loft conversions, changes of use and everything else that needs a form. Plenty of Dunstable households are already applying to change their homes, and a new application will be one of many.
One listed building in the area is on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register. It is in poor enough condition that its repair may qualify for grant funding, and any work on it will be closely scrutinised. That matters to whoever owns it. It does not affect the house next door, the semi round the corner or the price of either.
For a house that is neither listed nor in a conservation area, which describes most of Dunstable, many rear extensions, loft conversions and outbuildings fall under permitted development. That means they can be built within the national size limits without a full planning application. Flats have no permitted development rights for extensions, so anything bigger than redecorating needs permission. Some estates also had permitted development rights removed by a condition when they were first approved, and Central Bedfordshire Council's planning register shows whether any house carries such a condition. The north-east of the town was rebuilt wholesale in the early 1960s, so most of Dunstable's heritage arguments ended decades before anyone now applying for an extension was born.
Dunstable gives you a reasonable amount of freedom to change your house. An ordinary semi faces few barriers, while the 55 listed buildings face close control from the council.