Yes, but read the map before you sketch the loft. Nine conservation areas cover parts of it. Dozens of buildings are listed. The neighbours file planning applications like other places file tax returns. Extending here is common, and it is rarely a formality.
The area holds 38 listed buildings. Two are Grade I, the top tier reserved for buildings of exceptional interest, two are Grade II*, and 34 are Grade II. Listing covers the whole building, inside and out, so a new window, a knocked-through wall or a replaced staircase can need listed building consent on top of any planning permission. Buying one of the 38 means buying the paperwork that comes with it, and anyone who wanted a blank canvas has bought a museum piece with a mortgage.
The bigger constraint for most owners is the conservation areas, because they catch ordinary houses as well as historic ones. There are 9 across the area, including Station Approach, Old Avenue and Birchwood Road in West Byfleet, Byfleet Corner and Rosemount Parade, Caxton Avenue, Pyrford and Aviary Road in Pyrford, and the Basingstoke Canal. Inside those boundaries the council looks harder at changes that alter how a house looks from the street, and some works that pass without comment elsewhere need consent. A post-war semi can sit inside a conservation area without looking remotely historic, which is the fact estate-agent listings tend to leave out.
There is 1 scheduled monument in the area, the strictest tier of heritage protection. It matters mainly to anyone whose land sits next to it, and for them it matters a great deal.
None of this has stopped anyone trying. Across the planning records from April 2024 to June 2026 there were 4,767 applications, and 2,139 of those came in the last twelve months. Those figures count what people applied for, not what they were granted, but they make one thing plain: extending, converting and altering are ordinary activities here, and the neighbour with scaffolding up is not an eccentric.
In practice, the answer depends on which side of a boundary the house sits. Outside the conservation areas and away from listed buildings, many modest extensions can go ahead under permitted development, the national rules that allow some works without a full application. Inside a conservation area those rights are narrower, and for a listed building almost any change needs consent. Check the address against the council's conservation area maps and the listing register before you make an offer, not after you have commissioned the drawings. The planners have no interest in your mood board.
Freedom to extend is the area's weak spot: plenty of people do it, but a large share of the map puts extra consent between the plan and the builder.