Newcastle Roof Conversions carries out the survey and design, prepares the planning and building control submissions, then builds the conversion, which means one team answers your questions throughout. North Shields is one of many towns on our list of areas served across the North East.
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Why does the type of house change the advice?
Because it decides three things at once: whether you need a planning application, what the existing roof structure can carry, and which shape of conversion will give you a usable room. Two houses five minutes apart can sit at opposite ends of each scale.
- Tyneside flats: no permitted development rights, so a dormer or roof window on an upper flat goes through a full planning application.
- Terraces inside a conservation area: a rear dormer is often possible, though the council will look closely at its size and materials.
- Houses covered by an Article 4 direction: planning permission is likely for most external changes, including the roof.
- Estate semis and terraces elsewhere: often within permitted development, using the 40 cubic metre allowance for terraced houses and 50 for semis, subject to conditions.
Building regulations approval applies to every one of these, whichever planning route your house follows.
Victorian terraces and Tyneside flats near the town centre
The streets climbing up from the river in North Shields hold long runs of Victorian housing, some built as single houses and some as pairs of flats behind two neighbouring front doors. From the pavement they can look almost identical, so we confirm which you have before talking about design.
Single terraced houses
A typical terrace has a decent ridge height but a narrow plan, so a full-width dormer to the rear slope is the usual way to gain standing room for a bedroom and shower. The stair normally continues above the existing flight, and the party walls on both sides mean notices to the neighbours under the Party Wall etc. Act 1996.
Upper Tyneside flats
The upper flat normally owns the roof void under its lease, but the lease covenants also require the downstairs owner to agree to structural work. Get your conveyancer to read the title before you commit, then we can produce the planning drawings for North Tyneside Council and share them with your neighbour downstairs.
Northumberland Square and other North Shields conservation areas
Several parts of older North Shields are conservation areas, which limits what can be done to the roof without permission. Northumberland Square, Fish Quay, New Quay, Camp Terrace and Preston Park are all designated, and New Quay and Preston Park also carry Article 4 directions.
Northumberland Square grew from a plan of 1796 by John Wright, with a formal route along what is now Howard Street, and its late Georgian and Victorian terraces face a central garden. Front roof slopes here are on show to the whole square, so changes there are rarely acceptable. A modest rear dormer, or flush rooflights on a slope that cannot be seen from the street, has a far better chance with the planners.
Down on the bank sides around Fish Quay and New Quay, houses are seen from the river and the quay below, so even a rear roof slope can be in full public view. Dormers there need careful proportions and materials that match the neighbouring roofs.
Preston Park and Camp Terrace
Around Preston Park, large Victorian and Edwardian houses front onto a wooded open space, and a tree preservation order covers trees in the private gardens as well as the park. That affects where scaffolding and skips can go, and we plan access with it in mind. Camp Terrace includes some of the oldest houses in the early suburbs of North Shields. On houses of this age a rooflight conversion inside a tall roof is often the least intrusive option, and older roofs may need a bat survey before work starts.
What can a 1970s house at Preston Grange take?
Usually a good deal more than the low roof suggests, but the structure needs redesigning first. Estate houses from the late 1960s onwards were often built with trussed rafters, light timber frames that brace each other across the loft and cannot be cut out without replacing their job with new beams. Preston Grange, on the northern edge of North Shields, was developed from around that time, so we expect to find them there.
Roof pitches on these houses also tend to be shallower than on Victorian streets, so headroom usually comes from a rear dormer. Where a semi has a hipped end, a hip-to-gable extension squares off the side and adds floor area for the stair. Because these houses are rarely in a conservation area, many projects can use permitted development, and we confirm this with a lawful development certificate where it helps.
What do we check before drawing anything?
We look up your address on the council's conservation and Article 4 maps, confirm whether the house is a single dwelling or a flat, and inspect the roof timbers, ridge height and stair position. For flats we ask about the lease, and for older roofs we flag any need for a bat survey. Only then do we recommend a conversion type.
A house in North Shields can look simple from the street and still turn up a lease restriction, a protected tree or an Article 4 boundary. Finding those early saves you paying for drawings that would never be approved.
Nearby towns along the coast and river
We work right along this stretch of coast, including Tynemouth to the east and Whitley Bay to the north, as well as upriver in Wallsend. Across the Tyne, our page on South Shields covers the flats and seafront terraces on the far bank.
