Yes, and Houghton Regis is one of the easier towns in the county to do it in. There isn't a single conservation area. Only a short list of buildings is protected. The neighbours put in planning applications at a steady clip. For most houses here, the council will care about your neighbour's light far more than about the history of your brickwork.
Historic England lists 16 buildings in the area: one at grade I, two at grade II* and 13 at grade II. Listing covers the inside as well as the outside, so even a new internal doorway or a change of window needs listed building consent, and the council judges the change against the building's special character. For a town of thousands of homes, 16 is a very short list, and almost all of the post-war estates fall outside it. Unless the house you are buying has a stone tower or an eighteenth-century squire for a previous owner, listing is someone else's problem.
There is one scheduled monument in the area, the strictest tier of protection there is. It matters only to the very few homes whose gardens run up against it.
The neighbours are already at it. Central Bedfordshire Council's register shows 1,264 planning applications in the town between April 2024 and June 2026, 567 of them in the last twelve months. That is a town where plenty of homeowners have already been through the process, and the planning officers will have seen most versions of a rear extension and a loft dormer before yours arrives.
The ground deserves more attention than the paperwork. The British Geological Survey rates shrink-swell clay in the area up to class 3 on its hazard scale, with about 8% of the area at that level or above. Clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry can move shallow foundations, so an extension in those parts may need deeper footings and a structural engineer's opinion before the builder starts digging. Most of the town sits on firmer ground, and the people who need the deeper footings are the ones whose survey says so.
In practice, most houses here keep their full permitted development rights, so many single-storey rear extensions, loft conversions and porches can go ahead within national size limits without a full planning application. Bigger or taller schemes need permission, and a listed building needs consent for almost anything. Ask Central Bedfordshire Council whether any planning condition on the estate where the house stands has removed permitted development rights, because newer estates sometimes carry conditions that nobody mentions until the plans are drawn.
Freedom to extend is one of the town's genuine advantages. For most houses here, the limits on adding a room come from your budget and the clay rather than from the heritage rulebook.