Yes, in most of Milton-under-Wychwood and Shipton-under-Wychwood, though which house you buy decides how much paperwork comes with it. A few dozen listed buildings come with strict rules. One village has a conservation area. The whole place lies inside a protected landscape. The neighbours apply for planning permission constantly, and that tells you building work goes ahead here, with paperwork.
Historic England lists 74 buildings in the area. One is grade I, six are grade II* and 67 are grade II. Listing protects the whole building, inside as well as out, so changing the layout, a staircase, the windows or a roof on any of them needs listed building consent from the council, on top of any planning permission. A grade I or II* building gets extra scrutiny. Those 74 houses are where the rules are strictest. Building an extension onto a house older than its planning authority means making the case to people paid to doubt it.
There is one conservation area, covering the historic core of Shipton under Wychwood. Inside it, demolition, works to trees and changes that alter how a house looks from the street get closer attention than in the post-war closes. The whole area also falls within the Cotswolds area of outstanding natural beauty, so some of the extensions and cladding a homeowner could add without permission elsewhere need an application here. A rear extension on a 1970s semi and the same plan on a stone cottage facing the green are not the same project at all.
Neighbours are not put off. Between April 2024 and June 2026 the planning records show 1,705 applications across the area, 796 of them in the last twelve months. That counts paperwork filed, with nothing about how much of it was approved. All the same, a place where people file that much is a place where people build, and the parish has become fluent in planning forms.
In practice, an ordinary post-war house outside the conservation area keeps most of the usual householder rights, trimmed only by the landscape designation, and a modest rear extension there is routine. A listed house, or one inside Shipton's conservation area, starts with consent and a pre-application conversation with West Oxfordshire's planners. It is easy to find out which kind of house you're looking at: check the national heritage list and the council's conservation area map for the exact address, and ask the seller's solicitor about any past consents and any conditions attached to them. It costs less to get that answer now than to argue about it later.
Your freedom to extend is middling. Most of the post-war houses are straightforward, and the stone cottages people come here for need consent for almost everything.