Single-storey, double-storey, rear and side extension drawings for Arboretum homes — measured to Worcester City Council's design guidance, delivered in days and revised free until your decision, with a free approval-odds check before you commit.
Worcester City Council granted 91% of the householder planning decisions it made in its latest published year — 4 points above the 87% England-wide householder average. Arboretum contains Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace, Shrubbery Avenue conservation areas (Foregate Street and The Tything designated 1980), so materials, fenestration and roof form are assessed against the appraisal, which is where a policy-literate drawing pack earns its keep. Its dominant Victorian (1837–1901) housing stock sets the design brief on most streets.
Before permission is required, Class B allows 40m³ of added loft volume on a terrace and 50m³ on a semi or detached house, and Class A allows a 3m single-storey rear extension on a terrace or 4m on a detached house. In conservation areas such as Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace and Shrubbery Avenue those rights are removed, so we confirm your exact address before a line is drawn. A validated householder application in Arboretum is determined against an 8-week statutory target.
Foregate Street and The Tything (conservation area designated in 1980), Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace (conservation area designated in 1969), Shrubbery Avenue (conservation area designated in 1993) and St George's Square (conservation area designated in 1980) — these are the Arboretum pockets our drawings cover most. Heritage designations here include Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace, Shrubbery Avenue and St George's Square. Worcester City Council weighs each proposal against Worcester City Council's development plan and the design policies it applies to householder applications, where the 3,250 homes here are 54% pre-1900, 9% 1973-1982, 6% 2000-2008, which is what sets the realistic roof and rear-projection options. On roofs the borough is steeply pitched slate roofs, valley gutters and party parapets typical of pre-1900 building and shallow trussed roofs typical of 1970s building, over Victorian and earlier houses (54% of 3,250 homes), 1970s and early-1980s houses (9%) and 2000s houses and apartments (6%).
What is permitted in Arboretum turns on designation first, so that is where we start: Foregate Street and The Tything (conservation area designated in 1980), Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace (conservation area designated in 1969), Shrubbery Avenue (conservation area designated in 1993) and St George's Square (conservation area designated in 1980). Inside those boundaries permitted development is curtailed and Worcester City Council assesses materials, window detail and roof form against the area's own appraisal, so a scheme that would be waved through two streets away can need a full application here.
No Article 4 direction is recorded for Worcester City Council, but Arboretum's 4 conservation areas still limit permitted development on those streets.
On stock, Arboretum is Victorian and earlier houses (54% of 3,250 homes), 1970s and early-1980s houses (9%) and 2000s houses and apartments (6%) — which is why steeply pitched slate roofs, valley gutters and party parapets typical of pre-1900 building and shallow trussed roofs typical of 1970s building govern what a loft or rear projection can realistically be. Worcester City Council decided 174 householder applications in the latest published year and granted 91%, with 76% issued inside the eight-week target. We draw to that record rather than to a national average.
The full build-period split for Arboretum runs pre-1900 54% (1,750 homes), 1900-1918 4% (130 homes), 1919-1929 5% (150 homes), 1930-1939 1% (30 homes), 1955-1964 3% (100 homes), 1965-1972 2% (50 homes), 1973-1982 9% (290 homes), 1983-1992 5% (160 homes), 1993-1999 3% (90 homes) and 2000-2008 6% (180 homes). That distribution is why pre-1900 detailing dominates the drawings here, and it is measured from council-tax records rather than assumed from the street name.
Worcester City Council also decides for Cathedral, Fort Royal, Leopard Hill, St John's and St Nicholas, so a decision in Arboretum sits inside a wider pattern of decisions we track across the same authority — useful when an officer cites a precedent from the next area over.
Published figures for Arboretum and Worcester City Council. These are the numbers that decide what is realistic on your street, so we work from them rather than from national averages.
| Measure | Arboretum |
|---|---|
| Dwellings recorded | 3,250 |
| Built pre-1900 | 1,750 (54%) |
| Built 1900-1918 | 130 (4%) |
| Built 1919-1929 | 150 (5%) |
| Built 1930-1939 | 30 (1%) |
| Built 1955-1964 | 100 (3%) |
| Built 1965-1972 | 50 (2%) |
| Built 1973-1982 | 290 (9%) |
| Built 1983-1992 | 160 (5%) |
| Built 1993-1999 | 90 (3%) |
| Built 2000-2008 | 180 (6%) |
| Built before 1919 | 58% |
| Built 1919–1939 | 6% |
| Built 1945–2008 | 27% |
| Conservation areas in Arboretum | 4 (Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace…) |
| Conservation areas district-wide | 18 |
| Article 4 directions recorded | 0 |
| Householder applications decided | 174 |
| Householder applications granted | 91% |
| Decided within 8 weeks | 76% |
Dwelling stock from VOA council-tax data at 31 March 2025; conservation-area and Article 4 counts from planning.data.gov.uk (MHCLG); decision figures are Worcester City Council's own, from MHCLG live table PS2 for the year to 31 March 2026.
Arboretum homes come in a handful of recurring shapes, and each one points to a different extension. The borough is built largely from Victorian and earlier houses (54% of 3,250 homes), 1970s and early-1980s houses (9%) and 2000s houses and apartments (6%), so a Victorian terrace usually wants a rear or side-return infill, while an interwar semi has room for a wider single-storey wrap or a two-storey side addition. Worcester City Council judges every one of them against Worcester City Council's development plan and the design policies it applies to householder applications, weighing footprint, height and the impact on the house next door before it looks at the elevations.
That is why the drawings decide the outcome. We set the extension depth against the permitted-development limits precisely, keep the eaves and ridge within the allowances, and plot the 45-degree daylight lines to the neighbours' windows so the case officer can see the amenity test is passed. Arboretum contains Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace, Shrubbery Avenue conservation areas (Foregate Street and The Tything designated 1980), so materials, fenestration and roof form are assessed against the appraisal, so we design around it from the first sketch rather than discover it at validation.
Arboretum also protects whole streets — Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace, Shrubbery Avenue and St George's Square among them. No Article 4 direction is recorded for Worcester City Council, but Arboretum's 4 conservation areas still limit permitted development on those streets. On designated land the larger-home extension route and most side extensions stop being permitted development, so we confirm your address against those layers before drawing a line.
Plenty of Arboretum extensions are permitted development and need no planning application — a single-storey rear extension within the depth and height limits is the common case. You will normally need to apply to Worcester City Council if any of these apply:
We draw the footprint, the ridge and eaves heights and the neighbours' daylight on the page — the relationships Worcester City Council's officers weigh first — and submit a validation-complete pack, whether that is a lawful development certificate, a prior-approval notification or a full householder application.
Below is Worcester City Council's real householder decision record, drawn from official planning statistics and refreshed as new data lands. Worcester City Council granted 91% of its householder applications in the year to 31 March 2026, and Foregate Street and The Tything shapes what is approved here. A complete, policy-literate extension pack anticipates those pressure points before submission, which is why professionally drawn applications are decided faster and refused less often than DIY ones.
Source: MHCLG planning application statistics (householder decisions, England, 1 April 2025 - 31 March 2026). Compare every borough on our London approval-rate league table.
Tell us about your project and get a fixed, no-obligation quote back within one working day. If you don't need planning permission at all, we'll tell you that too — for free.
Across Foregate Street and The Tything, Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace and Shrubbery Avenue, the extension that lands most often is the single-storey rear addition — a glazed kitchen-diner across the back of the house, kept within the permitted-development depth or taken to a full application where the ground floor wants more. On the borough's victorian and earlier houses (54% of 3,250 homes), a side-return infill frequently pairs with it to square off the plan; on wider 2000s houses and apartments (6%), a two-storey side or rear extension can add a bedroom above without swallowing the garden.
The 3,250 homes here are 54% pre-1900, 9% 1973-1982, 6% 2000-2008, which is what sets the realistic roof and rear-projection options. We size the extension to the amenity and daylight tests, match the roof and materials to the host house, and keep enough garden to satisfy Worcester City Council's space standards — so the scheme answers the borough's questions before an objection can raise them. Where permitted-development rights are used up or removed, we prepare the householder application to the council's extension design guidance instead.
We draw extensions on every street in the borough. A few of the neighbourhoods where Arboretum projects come up most often:
Extension drawings for Foregate Street and The Tything's conservation area designated in 1980 — footprint-checked, daylight-tested and drawn to Worcester City Council's guidance.
Extension drawings for Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace's conservation area designated in 1969 — footprint-checked, daylight-tested and drawn to Worcester City Council's guidance.
Extension drawings for Shrubbery Avenue's conservation area designated in 1993 — footprint-checked, daylight-tested and drawn to Worcester City Council's guidance.
Extension drawings for St George's Square's conservation area designated in 1980 — footprint-checked, daylight-tested and drawn to Worcester City Council's guidance.
The right extension in Arboretum depends on your house type and how much garden you can give up. This is how the main options compare on planning route and what they add.
| Extension type | Permitted development? | What it adds | What Worcester City Council checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Single-storey rear | Often, within 3m/4m depth (6m/8m via prior approval) | Bigger kitchen-diner across the back | Depth, height, neighbour daylight (45°) |
| Side-return infill | Sometimes, if within width and height limits | Squares off an L-shaped ground floor | Width vs the original house, glazing to boundary |
| Two-storey rear/side | No — full application | Extra bedroom or bathroom above | Bulk, overlooking, 7m rear-boundary gap |
| Wraparound (rear + side) | No — full application | Whole-width open-plan ground floor | Combined footprint and garden retained |
Route depends on your street — conservation areas such as Foregate Street and The Tything and Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace and Article 4 directions can remove permitted-development rights.
A fixed process built around how Worcester City Council validates and decides householder extension applications — most drawings are submission-ready within seven days of survey.
Tell us your Arboretum postcode and house type. We confirm your conservation and Article 4 status, how much permitted-development depth you have left, and score your odds against live Worcester City Council decisions.
We measure the existing footprint, floor and eaves levels, boundary distances and the neighbours' window positions — the numbers the depth limits and daylight tests depend on.
Chartered designers develop the single-storey, two-storey or side extension to your brief, drawn inside the permitted-development limits or to Worcester City Council's extension design guidance.
We submit the certificate, prior-approval notice or application, manage validation and case-officer queries, and revise the drawings free until Worcester City Council issues its decision.
Not always. A single-storey rear extension up to 3 metres deep on a terrace or semi, or 4 metres on a detached house, and no higher than 4 metres, is usually permitted development. In Arboretum you will need to apply to Worcester City Council for two-storey extensions, side extensions wider than half the house, anything forward of the front wall, deeper rear extensions under the larger-home prior-approval route, and any extension in a conservation area such as Foregate Street and The Tything and Lansdowne Crescent and Raibow Hill Terrace.
Standard permitted development allows 3 metres on a terraced or semi-detached house and 4 metres on a detached one. The larger-home extension scheme can double that to 6 or 8 metres, but it needs a prior-approval notification to Worcester City Council and a neighbour-consultation period, and it does not apply on designated land such as Arboretum's conservation areas. We confirm which route your property qualifies for before drawing.
Two-storey and double-storey extensions almost always need a full householder application to Worcester City Council, because they fall outside permitted development on most homes. The council looks closely at bulk, overlooking of neighbours and the 7-metre gap a two-storey rear extension must keep from the rear boundary. We design to those tests and show the daylight and privacy angles on the drawings. This applies to your Arboretum address specifically.
A householder planning application in Arboretum runs to a statutory eight-week target, a larger-home prior-approval notification to around six weeks including the neighbour-consultation period, and a lawful development certificate to eight weeks. Incomplete submissions stall at validation, so we submit a complete pack and manage officer queries to keep the decision on schedule. Worcester City Council is the decision-maker.
Yes — planning permission and building regulations are separate consents, and almost every extension needs both. Planning governs whether you can build it; building control governs how it is built, covering structure, insulation, drainage and fire safety. We prepare the building-regulations drawings alongside the planning set so Worcester City Council's building control or an approved inspector can sign the work off. This applies to your Arboretum address specifically.
Every house and brief is different, so we price each Arboretum extension individually and send a fixed, no-obligation quote back within one working day. It covers the full drawing pack with free revisions until Worcester City Council approves, and we tell you upfront whether your extension qualifies as permitted development. Call 020 7864 7245 to get started.
Answer five quick questions and get a free planning score for your exact address — instantly. Then, if you want the full picture, unlock the detailed analysis: your council's live approval rates, local precedents, constraints on your street and a step-by-step route to permission.
Same fixed quotes, same fast drawings — wherever your project is.