Yes, and the planners have less to object to here than almost anywhere. Only three buildings in the village are listed. There are no conservation areas. There are no scheduled monuments. The main obstacle to your extension is your neighbour's opinion of it.
Historic England's list records 3 listed buildings in Whitfield: none at Grade I, 1 at Grade II* and 2 at Grade II. Listing means any change that affects a building's character, inside or out, needs listed building consent on top of ordinary planning permission, and Grade II* marks a building of more than special interest. For the three owners concerned, that is a real constraint. For everyone else, it's somebody else's problem. The area also has no conservation areas, so the extra controls over demolition, trees and street-facing changes that come with one don't apply to any home here.
The neighbours are not waiting for permission to get on with it. Whitfield saw 416 planning applications between April 2024 and June 2026, and 193 in the latest twelve months. That's a steady stream of people adding rooms, changing layouts and filling in the gaps next to their houses in a village of post-war stock with plenty of plot to play with. The evidence of altering homes here is the paperwork, not the promise.
In practice, most houses in Whitfield are ordinary houses with ordinary rights. Many modest extensions, outbuildings and roof changes on houses outside conservation areas can fall under permitted development, which means no full planning application, provided they stay within the national size and position limits. Larger schemes, anything on a flat, and anything touching one of the three listed buildings need consent. Check whether a property's permitted development rights have been removed by a condition on an earlier planning permission, which happens on some newer estates, and ask the council when a project sits close to the limits. The cheapest drawing is the one done before the builder turns up.
Freedom to extend and alter a home is one of Whitfield's strongest cards. There is almost no heritage red tape here, and the only people likely to object to your plans are the ones who have to look at them.