East Broyle, where a garage was an optional extra
East Broyle, on the north-west side of the city, was built from a 1964 specification and finished in 1975. According to the local history society's account of the original sales papers, a garage wasn't standard on every plot. On some it was an extra the buyer paid for.
So don't assume next door's layout matches yours. The City Council's own assessment of the area picks out flat-roofed garages as part of its look. A flat roof over a new room will usually need insulating and recovering, and it's the first thing I'd ask a builder to price.
The newer neighbourhoods are a different check. Graylingwell Park, the old Roussillon Barracks off Broyle Road, Whitehouse Farm to the west and the big Tangmere development were all built under recent planning permissions. The Planning Portal warns that rights to convert a garage are sometimes removed, and names new housing developments as the place to look first. Ask the council for the original decision notice for your phase and read the conditions before paying for drawings. Graylingwell also sits in its own conservation area.
A blank wall facing the street
Inside the walls, the conservation area appraisal describes houses in the Pallants and South Street sitting on the back of the pavement, mostly with no front garden at all. Garages belong to the suburbs.
The conservation area does reach the suburbs, though, and there the Article 4 direction approved in 2018 matters. It removes the right to make an "improvement or other alteration" to a house where the work fronts a road, open space or waterway. Bricking up a garage door and fitting a window on the street side is that sort of alteration, so plan on an application. The same direction covers new hard surfaces at the front, which affects where the car ends up.
Tangmere's conservation area has its own directions. They cover changes to windows and doors on any elevation facing a public area, side walls of corner houses included, and the council says it won't normally accept aluminium or plastic there. Brick and timber, matched to the house, is the safer drawing.
Each type below links to a full guide.
Integral garage. Where the garage is built into a house on one of the newer estates, check for a condition before anything else. The room already shares the house's walls, so the work is mostly floor, insulation and the old door opening.
Single garage. Building control has a separate visit for the foundations or lintel under the infilled door. Brickearth over chalk is common on the coastal plain, so let the inspector see what the new footing sits on.
Read our full guide: Single Garage Conversion: What Is Involved and What to Budget For →
Home office. A sensible use of an East Broyle garage with the car on the drive. Heated and used daily, it is a habitable room and needs building regulations approval like any other.
Bedroom. Think twice about a ground-floor bedroom in central Chichester or Whyke, inside the Environment Agency's River Lavant flood warning area. Check the flood map for your address first.
Utility or playroom. Keeping the original door and fitting out the space behind it avoids the Article 4 question on a conservation area street. Ask building control whether your plan counts as habitable.
Double garage. Where a bigger detached house has one, converting one bay and keeping the other for a car or bikes often suits a house with a short drive.
Detached garage. Kept as a workshop or gym for the household, the Planning Portal says permission is typically not needed. A separate home or holiday let is another matter. It may need permission whatever the works, and near the harbour a nitrogen budget for the overnight stays.
Gym or studio. On a pair of semis with garages side by side, the party wall carries sound. Line it before the plasterer comes, and settle the floor build-up before the screed goes down.
Planning and building control. Internal work rarely needs permission unless a condition, a listing or the Article 4 direction applies. Building regulations approval is a separate matter, and in the South Downs National Park the park authority handles planning instead of the district.
Cost and value. No prices here. A flat roof to replace, a planning application in the conservation area or a raised floor can each change the figure, so get three firms to look at your garage.
Five visits from the district's inspectors
Chichester District Council publishes a service plan for garages becoming habitable rooms. A surveyor comes at the start to look at the existing structure, then at the foundations or lintels for the infilled door, before the drains are covered, before plastering or screeding to see the insulation and damp proofing, and at the end. They also want a copy of the electrical certificate. Miss a visit and the completion certificate may not come.
The same document reminds you that building regulations approval doesn't replace planning permission.
Where the car goes afterwards
West Sussex County Council's parking guidance, which it uses when advising councils on applications, says a garage should be at least 6 metres by 3 metres inside, and even then counts only as half an allocated space. Plenty of older garages are smaller. If yours is, it was never counted as a full parking space.
The district's 2009 design guidance asks for garages facing a road to sit at least 6 metres back, so the drive in front often holds a car already. Paving more of the front garden is the part that can need permission, particularly in the conservation area.
Radon protection can be needed for conversions in some areas. Look up your address on the UKradon map before the floor goes down.
Where these facts come from
- CDC service plan: conversion of a garage to form habitable accommodation
- Guidance on Parking at New Developments, 2020 (West Sussex County Council)
- Design Guidelines for Alterations to Dwellings and Extensions, 2009 (Chichester District Council)
- Article 4 directions for Chichester Conservation Area, Cabinet appendix (2018)
- Residents' guide to the Tangmere Article 4 directions
- Chichester Conservation Area Character Appraisal
- The birth of the East Broyle estate (Chichester Local History)
- Chichester on the River Lavant flood warning area (Environment Agency)
- Chichester District Council: nutrient neutrality
- Planning Portal: garage conversion planning permission
- Planning Portal: building regulations for garage conversions
- Planning Portal: converting a garage into a workshop
- LABC: do I need to consider radon?
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Questions people in Chichester ask
We're on East Broyle and our garage has a flat roof. Is that a problem?
Not in itself. The roof will usually need insulating and often recovering once the space is a room, and building control will look at the existing structure on its first visit. Price it in from the start.
We live in Graylingwell Park. Can we convert the garage without an application?
Possibly, but check twice. Graylingwell is a recent development and also a conservation area. Ask the council for the decision notice covering your phase and look for a condition about garages, then think about any change to the front of the house.
Our Tangmere house is on a corner. Does the side count as the front?
For the Tangmere conservation area directions, yes. They cover elevations facing a public area, including side elevations of corner properties, so a new window where the garage door was will need consent.
Is our garage too small to count as parking anyway?
Measure it inside. County guidance wants at least 6 metres by 3 metres, and even a garage that size counts as half a space. A smaller one helps your case if an application is needed.