BeforeIBuyHonest. Maybe too honest.
№ 07 / 09 · Planning

Can I extend a house in Frimley?

For anyone buying or renting in Frimley.

Yes, and with less fuss than most of Surrey. Listed buildings are rare. No conservation area covers the town. Most homes are post-war houses nobody wants to preserve in amber. The usual planning rules apply here, and very little else.

Frimley has 24 listed buildings. Two are Grade I, none are Grade II*, and the other 22 are Grade II. Listing means any change to the building, inside or out, needs listed building consent on top of any planning permission, and a fitted kitchen can turn into a correspondence course. The odds of buying one by accident are low. If the house you are viewing is on that list, the survey is the easy part.

The neighbours are not shy about building. Between April 2024 and June 2026, 2,093 planning applications were recorded for the area, with 863 in the last twelve months alone. That is not a count of approvals, and it says nothing about how many were granted. It says people here extend, convert and rebuild as a matter of routine, and the planning office has had plenty of practice. A rear extension in Frimley won't make you the talk of the street. The talk of the street started years ago and was also about extensions.

In practice, most houses here will start from normal permitted development rights, which let smaller extensions and some loft work go ahead without a full application, within national size limits. Anything bigger, anything at the front, and anything on a listed building needs consent. Those rights can be removed on individual estates or by earlier planning conditions, so check the title and the planning history of the specific house before assuming the loft conversion is a formality. A ten-minute search now saves a planning refusal later.

Freedom to extend is one of Frimley's stronger points. The rules here are the ordinary ones, and anyone who needs more room can usually build it.

Sources: Local council planning registers · Historic England

Data to May 2026 · Figures checked 28 September 2026 (what this means)