You can extend a house in Hastings, but expect to ask permission more often than most towns would make you. Almost six hundred buildings are listed. Eighteen conservation areas cover much of the older town. Nearly a thousand planning applications went in over the last year. Here an extension is a negotiation, not a weekend job.
Historic England lists 598 buildings in and around the town. One is Grade I, 23 are Grade II* and 574 are Grade II. Listing covers the whole building, inside and out, so changing windows, knocking through a wall or adding an extension to a listed home needs listed building consent on top of any planning permission. Grade II is the most common grade and the least strict, but it's still a legal protection, not a suggestion. Buy a listed house expecting to treat it like a new-build and the paperwork will correct you.
There are 18 conservation areas, from Old Town, Hastings and White Rock, Hastings to Warrior Square, Burtons' and King's Road in St Leonards. Inside a conservation area, the council controls demolition and pays closer attention to anything visible from the street, and some of the smaller changes a homeowner elsewhere could make without asking may need consent here. A house doesn't have to be listed to be watched.
There are also 8 scheduled monuments, the strictest tier of protection. They matter mostly if your plot sits next to one, in which case any digging near it will draw attention.
None of this stops people. Hastings Borough Council received 2,258 planning applications between March 2024 and June 2026, with 993 in the most recent twelve months. That's a town full of homeowners building, altering and arguing with drawings. The volume proves extending here is normal. It says nothing about how many got the answer they wanted, so ask the council about applications on your street before assuming yours will go through.
Eleven listed buildings in the area sit on Historic England's Heritage at Risk register. That means they're in poor condition, and repairs may qualify for grant support and will certainly be scrutinised closely. For the buyer of an ordinary house down the road, it doesn't change anything. For the buyer of one of those eleven, it's the whole job.
The practical route is simple. Outside a conservation area and in an unlisted house, many modest extensions can fall under permitted development, the rules that let homeowners build within set limits without a full application. Inside a conservation area or in a listed building, those rights narrow or disappear, and the answer turns into an application. Check the property's status with the council before you exchange, not after the architect has sent the invoice.
Freedom to extend is among the town's weakest points: so much of Hastings is protected that the default answer to a bold idea is "apply first", and in the older streets the answer is often no.