Behind Goddard Avenue and The Mall
Edwardian streets rarely come with garages. Swindon's Town Gardens are an exception. The council's 2008 appraisal of that conservation area describes narrow service roads running behind each terrace, lined with outbuildings and garages, while the streets out front are parked up almost end to end.
So the garage you might turn into a room here usually stands at the bottom of the garden, opening onto a lane. A few early twentieth century outbuildings of brick and slate survive among the modern sheds, and the appraisal says they deserve to be kept. If yours is one, I'd repair it rather than knock it down for a block-built studio. Where a rebuild needs consent, the appraisal wants its bulk and scale to suit the lane, and it lists oversized garage proposals as a problem for the area.
Then there's the front. The same appraisal criticises front gardens on Bath Road, Westlecot Road and Belmont Crescent paved over for cars, and wants the stone and brick walls and hedges retained. Prospect Place's appraisal makes the same complaint about garden walls lost to parking. Swapping the garage for a parking pad in front is a hard sell anywhere in Old Town.
Swindon's own measure of a parking space
The council's 2011 guide to extensions and alterations is blunt about it. Converting a garage loses a potential parking space, and the highway authority will want enough parking left on the plot for the size of house. You meet that test whenever your scheme needs planning permission, for instance where the householder rights were taken away when the estate was approved.
For the numbers, look at the council's 2021 parking standards for new development. A garage only works as a parking space if it is at least 3m by 6m inside, behind a door no narrower than 2.1m. A space on a drive is 2.5m by 5m. Outside the town centre, a two or three bedroom home is expected to have two spaces and a four bedroom home three, while the central sector needs none at all. Check your street on its sector maps.
Plenty of older garages are smaller than that inside. If a car barely fits in yours, tell the planners, because by the council's own yardstick it was never much of a space.
From lane garages to new-build integrals
Each entry links to a fuller guide.
Detached. Typical of the Town Gardens lanes. An office, gym or workshop used with the house is one thing. Swindon's 2011 guide treats a granny annexe as a new dwelling, and the Planning Portal warns that creating a separate home may need permission whatever the building work.
Home office. The obvious use for a garage on a back lane, away from household noise. Heated and used daily, it normally needs building control approval, with walls, floor and roof insulated to current standards.
Gym or studio. On a lane the sound carries straight into the next garden. Line the walls and decide on the floor build-up for weights before the mirrors go up.
Integral. If you own one on a newer estate such as Wichelstowe, Tadpole Farm or Commonhead, check the house's planning history before anything else. Swindon's 2016 residential design guide allows the council to remove extension rights from new homes with little garden, and the Planning Portal points to new developments as the place conversion rights are most often withdrawn.
Single. The usual job beside a semi. If planning does come into it, the 2011 guide asks for new front windows that echo the one alongside, so the front of the house keeps its line.
Read our full guide: Single Garage Conversion: What Is Involved and What to Budget For →
Double. Swindon's guide wants double garages built with two single doors and a pier between them. That pier is the natural dividing line, and half kept for the car helps if parking is questioned.
Bedroom. Where the room is reached only through another room, LABC advises an escape window with a clear opening of 450 by 733mm, its sill no more than 1.1m above the floor. Glazing should stay under a quarter of the floor area.
Utility or playroom. A good answer for a garage under the 3m by 6m mark that never held a car anyway. Plan the drain run before the washing machine moves in.
Planning and approval. With householder rights intact, a Swindon garage can normally become a room without a planning application, though building control approval is normally needed. In the railway village, the 1980 Article 4 direction covers alterations, hardstandings and garden walls, and most cottages are listed.
Cost and value. We don't print a Swindon figure. A lane garage needing new footings under the old door and a fresh slab is a different job from fitting out an integral garage on a 2010s estate, so have it priced on site.
Approval, radon and the Ray
Building control in Swindon is the council's own team. Full plans suits any domestic job and gets the drawings checked first. A building notice is quicker to start, but the council won't take one for work on or within 3 metres of a public sewer. Regularisation covers work already done.
LABC says conversions in areas with raised radon need basic or full protection, depending on the band. Look up your address on the UKradon map before the floor is designed, and if in doubt, put the question to the council's team.
Near the River Ray, put the postcode into the flood map first. Where an application is needed in Flood Zone 2, the Environment Agency's standing advice expects a ground floor with no stairs up to have access to a safe refuge above the flood level. A detached garage has no upstairs, so in that spot I'd make it an office rather than somewhere to sleep.
Where these facts come from
- Swindon Borough Council: Parking Standards for New Development (2021)
- Swindon Borough Council: Residential Extensions and Alterations SPD (2011)
- Swindon Residential Design Guide SPD, Part 1 (2016)
- Old Town, Town Gardens conservation area appraisal (2008)
- Old Town, Prospect Place conservation area appraisal (2008)
- Railway Village Article 4 direction (1980)
- Swindon Borough Council: vehicle crossing policy
- Swindon Borough Council: apply for building regulations approval
- Planning Portal: garage conversion planning permission
- Planning Portal: garage conversion building regulations
- LABC: garage conversion tips from building control
- LABC: do I need to consider radon?
- Environment Agency: flood risk standing advice
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Questions people in Swindon ask
Our house backs onto a service lane in Town Gardens. Can the old garage become a studio?
Very likely, if it stays part of the house rather than a separate home. It is in a conservation area, so ask the conservation team before changing its outside. The 2008 appraisal wants the surviving early brick and slate buildings kept.
My new-build garage is too narrow for our car. Does the council still count it as parking?
The council's 2021 standards say a garage works as a parking space only at 3m by 6m inside or more, with a door at least 2.1m wide. If yours is smaller and an application turns out to be needed, say so in it and show the parking left on the drive.
Can I pave the front garden to make up for the garage?
The vehicle crossing policy wants at least 5m clear from the front of the house or bay to the pavement and 2.5m of width, with a third of the frontage kept planted or permeable. A conservation area, a listed house or a classified road brings planning permission into it too.
We're buying a house in Swindon with a converted garage. What should we ask the seller for?
The completion certificate from building control. If there isn't one, the seller can apply to the council for regularisation, and that is best settled before you exchange.