Loft conversions in Stourbridge

Love Lane, Corser Street and Farlands Road

The Love Lane conservation area lies about two kilometres south of the town centre, between Oldswinford Cross and Mary Stevens Park. It was designated in 1976 to protect its well kept Victorian terraces and villas, and the council made its Article 4 direction in 1978. Under the direction, planning permission is needed for any alteration to the roof, including the slates or tiles and any dormer or rooflight.

The council's character study describes roofs of Welsh slate or small red clay tiles, with pitches from a shallow 30 degrees, usually slated and hipped, to 45 degrees on the clay-tiled roofs of Corser Street. Chimneys stand on almost all properties, the terraces and semis having shared, often paired, stacks most commonly on the front slope. The study names just two places with dormers: hipped dormers on 3 and 5 Love Lane, and gable dormers on an extension to Leedons on the corner of Farlands Road. A shallow hipped slate roof often lacks the height for a rooflight conversion, so the first step is a measured survey of the height under the ridge. Where the height is there, conservation rooflights on the rear slope, matching slate and retained chimneys follow the character study most closely.

Wollaston, Oldswinford and the bigger houses to the south

Wollaston (designated in 1991), Church Road in Oldswinford and High Street, Stourbridge are conservation areas without Article 4 directions. Inside them a dormer, hip-to-gable or mansard needs planning permission, while rooflights that sit close to the slope can usually go in as permitted development. The Wollaston and Stourbridge Town ward also has more flats than most of the borough, 22 per cent of households in the 2021 Census against 15 per cent overall, and flats have no permitted development rights for roof extensions.

South of the centre the houses get bigger. In the Norton ward and the Pedmore and Stourbridge East ward, 39 per cent of households live in a detached house or bungalow, against 22 per cent across Dudley borough. Detached and semi-detached houses have the larger 50 cubic metre allowance, and a hipped roof on either usually points to a hip-to-gable change with a rear dormer.

Mucklow semis and the cat-slide roof

Dudley Council's Residential Design Guidance SPD (2023) gives one house type its own section: Mucklow-built semis, found mainly in the south of the borough, with a long cat-slide roof sweeping down one side. They usually stand on estates with a strong rhythm of matching houses, which the guide says makes them particularly sensitive to change. It says side extensions and side dormers threaten that roof, and that extensions should keep their roofs in line with or below the original eaves. On a Mucklow semi that needs a planning application, a rear dormer that leaves the cat-slide alone is the design that sits most easily with the guide.