Yes, for most homes in Wroughton, and the neighbours are already proving it. Most houses aren't listed. There's one conservation area. The ground needs more attention than the planners do. Your extension's toughest critic is likely to be the clay, not the council.
Wroughton has 48 listed buildings. One is grade I, the top tier reserved for buildings of exceptional interest, two are grade II*, and the other 45 are grade II. Listing covers the whole building, inside and out, so changes that affect its character need listed building consent on top of any planning permission, and that includes the things owners assume are harmless, like windows, doors and internal walls. If you're buying one of the 48, you're buying a custodian's role along with the kitchen, and the paperwork arrives before the builder does.
There's one conservation area in the village, named Wroughton. Inside it, the council takes a closer interest in anything visible from the street, and some of the freedoms that apply elsewhere are narrower, so extensions, roof changes and demolition get more scrutiny. Whether any extra local restrictions apply to a particular street is a question for Swindon Borough Council before you draw anything up, not after.
Two scheduled monuments sit within the area. They carry the strictest protection there is, and they matter mainly if your land borders one, in which case ground works nearby need separate consent and a lot more patience.
Planning activity is the clearest evidence that people do alter homes here. There were 742 applications between April 2024 and June 2026, and 365 of them in the twelve months to June 2026. That's a village of loft conversions, rear extensions and new porches, and the volume says the planning department is busy rather than hostile. It says nothing about how many were approved, and an application isn't a permission.
The ground is the thing to plan around. The British Geological Survey classes shrink-swell clay across the area at class 3, and every postcode reaches it. Clay that swells when wet and shrinks when dry moves foundations, so an extension here usually needs deeper footings than a buyer might budget for and a structural engineer's view before the plans are drawn. It isn't a reason to abandon the idea, but it is a reason to get the ground assessed before you promise anyone a bigger kitchen by Christmas. Clay doesn't have an appeals process.
In practice, most houses outside the conservation area and the listed buildings can take modest extensions under permitted development, the national rights that let householders build within set limits without a full planning application. Inside the conservation area those rights are narrower, and listed buildings don't benefit from them in the same way. Flats sit under different rules again. The sensible order is to check whether the property is listed, whether it sits inside the conservation area, and then whether a lawful development certificate would settle the question before you spend on drawings.
Your freedom to extend in Wroughton is middling: straightforward for most semis and bungalows, heavier going for the listed buildings and the conservation area, and the clay is the cost everyone forgets.