Two-storey extension drawings for Wigan homes — bedroom above, living space below, drawn against the 3-metre projection and 7-metre boundary rules and to Wigan Council's design guidance, delivered in days and revised free until your decision.
Wigan Council granted 89% of the householder planning decisions it made in its latest published year — 2 points above the 87% England-wide householder average. A large share of the borough is Green Belt, so extension and outbuilding scale is tightly held on affected plots away from the urban cores, which is where a policy-literate drawing pack earns its keep. Its dominant Victorian (1837–1901), Edwardian (1901–1910), interwar (1918–1939) and postwar (1945–1970) housing stock sets the design brief on most streets.
Class A and Class B set the thresholds — a rear dormer to 40m³ on a terrace or 50m³ on a semi or detached, and a single-storey rear extension to 3m on a terrace or 4m on a detached house — beyond which Wigan Council needs a full application. Wigan carries at least one Article 4 direction, and conservation areas including Wigan Town Centre, Wigan Pier and Standish remove those rights outright, so we confirm your exact address before a line is drawn. A validated householder application in Wigan is determined against an 8-week statutory target.
Standish (affluent commuter village with a conservation-area core mixing stone and brick with modern estates), Leigh (former cotton and mining town with canal heritage, dense terraces and a town-centre conservation area), Ashton-in-Makerfield (southern coalfield town of brick terraces and interwar suburban growth), Hindley (mining township of terraced streets with a town-centre conservation area), Tyldesley (former mill and mining town of brick terraces with a town-centre conservation area) and Haigh (semi-rural estate village adjoining Haigh Woodland Park with protected historic character) — these are the Wigan pockets our drawings cover most. Heritage designations here include Wigan Town Centre, Wigan Pier, Standish, Haigh Village, Leigh Town Centre and Tyldesley Town Centre. Wigan Council weighs each proposal against Places for Everyone (the Greater Manchester joint plan, effective March 2024) alongside the Wigan Local Plan Core Strategy and the emerging district Local Plan, where the former coalfield legacy of the Wigan Flashes and low-lying mossland brings ground-stability, contamination and ecology constraints to development sites. Converted terraced flats occur across the town centres of Wigan and Leigh, and those units carry no householder permitted-development rights.. On roofs the borough is Welsh slate on the Victorian and Edwardian brick terraces and interlocking concrete tile on the interwar and post-war semis, over Victorian and Edwardian coalfield and millworkers' red-brick terraces, interwar semis and council-estate housing and older stone cores in the estate villages.
Adding at first floor changes the question the case officer asks. A single-storey extension is judged mostly on daylight and garden loss; a two-storey extension is judged on overlooking, bulk against the neighbouring roofline, and whether it reads as part of the house or bolted onto it. Wigan is largely Victorian and Edwardian coalfield and millworkers' red-brick terraces, interwar semis and council-estate housing and older stone cores in the estate villages, and Welsh slate on the Victorian and Edwardian brick terraces and interlocking concrete tile on the interwar and post-war semis set what a matching roof actually means here.
The permitted-development route exists but is narrow: 3 metres of rear projection, a 7-metre stand-off from the rear boundary, eaves and ridge no higher than the original, and side-facing upper windows obscure-glazed and non-opening below 1.7 metres above floor level. Most two-storey schemes fail one of those, usually the 7-metre boundary rule on a shorter garden, and go in as a full application instead. We establish which route applies before designing, because it changes the drawing set.
A large share of the borough is Green Belt, so extension and outbuilding scale is tightly held on affected plots away from the urban cores. Wigan's borough-wide Article 4 direction, in force from August 2025, removes permitted-development rights for the change of use from a house (C3) to a small HMO (C4), so all new HMOs now need planning permission, and localised conservation-area directions add further householder controls.
Some two-storey rear extensions are permitted development. You will need a full application to Wigan Council if any of these apply:
We set the projection and boundary distance on the site plan, prove the roof-pitch match on the elevations, and specify obscure glazing on the side windows — the three things Wigan Council checks first — then submit a validation-complete pack.
Below is Wigan Council's real householder decision record, drawn from official planning statistics and refreshed as new data lands. Wigan approves close to nine in ten planning applications, with its extensive Green Belt, former-coalfield ground conditions and canal-side conservation areas the main constraints on householder schemes. Two-storey schemes attract more neighbour comment than any other householder work, so the overlooking and daylight case has to be made on the drawings.
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 Standish, Leigh and Ashton-in-Makerfield, the schemes that succeed set the first floor back from the ground floor, keep the ridge below the original, and treat the flank wall as blank or obscure-glazed. On victorian and edwardian coalfield and millworkers' red-brick terraces, matching the eaves line matters more than matching the brick: an extension that carries the existing eaves through reads as original even in a different material.
The former coalfield legacy of the Wigan Flashes and low-lying mossland brings ground-stability, contamination and ecology constraints to development sites. We draw the 45-degree daylight test from the neighbour's nearest habitable window, show the window positions in section, and set out the steel and foundation implications early — a two-storey extension changes the load path, so the structural design and the planning design have to be developed together rather than in sequence.
We draw two-storey extensions across Wigan. A few of the areas where they come up most often:
Two storey extension drawings for Standish — affluent commuter village with a conservation-area core mixing stone and brick with modern estates — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
Two storey extension drawings for Leigh — former cotton and mining town with canal heritage, dense terraces and a town-centre conservation area — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
Two storey extension drawings for Ashton-in-Makerfield — southern coalfield town of brick terraces and interwar suburban growth — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
Two storey extension drawings for Hindley — mining township of terraced streets with a town-centre conservation area — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
Two storey extension drawings for Tyldesley — former mill and mining town of brick terraces with a town-centre conservation area — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
Two storey extension drawings for Haigh — semi-rural estate village adjoining Haigh Woodland Park with protected historic character — dimensioned against the 3m and 7m limits and drawn to Wigan Council's guidance.
The first-floor limits are tighter than the ground-floor ones. This is how the common cases compare.
| Scheme | Permitted development? | Deciding limit | What Wigan Council checks |
|---|---|---|---|
| Two-storey rear, 3m projection, 7m+ to boundary | Often yes | 3m projection / 7m boundary | Roof match, side-window glazing |
| Two-storey rear, under 7m to boundary | No — full application | Rear-boundary distance | Overlooking, daylight, garden loss |
| Two-storey side extension | No — full application | Side elevation | Gap to boundary, street rhythm |
| Two-storey wraparound | No — full application | Combined footprint | Bulk, massing, neighbour amenity |
| Any two-storey on designated land | No — full application | Designation | Character and appearance |
Limits from the GPDO 2015, Schedule 2, Part 1, Class A — two-storey rear extension conditions.
A fixed process built around how Wigan Council validates and decides two-storey applications.
Send us your Wigan postcode and garden depth. We measure the 7-metre boundary rule against your plot, confirm designation status, and score your odds against live Wigan Council decisions.
We measure the original rear wall, eaves and ridge heights, garden depth and every neighbouring window that faces the site — the inputs the daylight and overlooking case is built from.
Chartered designers develop the two-storey addition to your brief with the roof and eaves resolved, and we coordinate the load path so the structural scheme and the planning scheme are the same building.
We submit the application, manage validation and case-officer queries, and revise the drawings free until Wigan Council issues its decision.
Often, but not always. A two-storey rear extension can be permitted development if it projects no more than 3 metres, sits at least 7 metres from the rear boundary, does not exceed the existing eaves and ridge, and has obscure-glazed non-opening side windows below 1.7 metres. In Wigan, the 7-metre rule is what most commonly forces a full application to Wigan Council.
No part of a permitted-development two-storey rear extension may come within 7 metres of the boundary opposite the rear wall of the house. It exists to protect the neighbour behind you from being overlooked at first floor. On shorter Wigan gardens this is decisive, and we measure it on survey before any design work rather than discovering it at validation. Wigan Council is the decision-maker.
Not under permitted development — two-storey side extensions always need a full application to Wigan Council. They are assessed on the gap to the boundary, whether the street's rhythm of spaces between houses survives, and whether the extension is subordinate to the original. Setting the first floor back from the front building line and down from the ridge is what usually makes the difference.
Overlooking is the most common objection, and it is answerable on the drawings. We position habitable-room windows away from neighbouring gardens, obscure-glaze and fix shut anything on the flank below 1.7 metres, and show the sight lines in section. Where the geometry is tight, a rooflight or a high-level window gives the same daylight without the mutual overlooking that draws objections. This applies to your Wigan address specifically. Wigan Council is the decision-maker.
Almost certainly. Excavating within 3 metres of a neighbouring structure and building on or up to the boundary both trigger the Party Wall etc. Act 1996, and a two-storey extension usually does both. It is entirely separate from Wigan Council's planning decision, so we flag the notice period early and detail the junction on the drawings.
Yes. Adding a floor changes the load path from roof to foundation, so beams, padstones and foundation depths all need designing and calculating for building control. Planning and building regulations are separate consents, and the structural set is what building control assesses — we prepare both so the approved scheme is the buildable one. This applies to your Wigan address specifically. Wigan Council is the decision-maker.
We quote each Wigan two-storey extension individually, because plot depth, roof form and structural complexity vary house to house, and send a fixed, no-obligation quote within one working day. It covers the drawing pack with free revisions until Wigan Council approves. Call 020 7864 7245 to start.
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Same fixed quotes, same fast drawings — wherever your project is.