Yes, and Lightwater puts fewer obstacles in the way than most of Surrey. No conservation area covers the village. Only a handful of buildings are listed. The neighbours file hundreds of planning applications between them. The obstacle is usually the budget, not the building.
Lightwater has 5 listed buildings, all of them Grade II. There are none at Grade I and none at Grade II*. Listing means any change that affects a building's character, inside or out, needs listed building consent on top of any planning permission, and that covers windows, walls and interiors as well as extensions. With 5 in the whole village, the odds of buying one without knowing are low, and the conveyancing searches will flag it anyway. Nor is there a conservation area in Lightwater itself. The ones on the local list are in Bagshot and Windlesham, so the extra rules on demolition, trees and street-facing alterations that come with them don't apply here.
There are 2 scheduled monuments in the surrounding area, the strictest tier of heritage protection, and the heath south of the village holds prehistoric burial mounds. They matter for anyone with land near one. They don't matter for a kitchen extension on an estate built after 1960.
The planning register shows how busy the builders are. There were 426 planning applications between April 2024 and June 2026, including 169 in the twelve months to June 2026. That is a village where people extend, convert and rebuild as a matter of course, and a street where the skip is a feature of the front garden for a season.
In practice, a lot of ordinary householder work on a house can go ahead under permitted development rights, the national allowance for modest extensions and alterations without a full planning application, provided the property hasn't had those rights removed and the work stays within the published limits. Flats, listed buildings and homes on estates with conditions attached work differently, and some rear extensions need prior approval even when full permission isn't required. Check the specific property's planning history with Surrey Heath council before buying on the strength of a loft conversion that hasn't been drawn yet.
Freedom to extend is one of Lightwater's strengths. The heritage rules touch very few homes, and the planning file is evidence that the rest of the village is making full use of it.