Double-storey extensions in Melton Mowbray — from survey to completion

Double Storey Extensions in Melton Mowbray: how we approach the work

Our double-storey extension service in Melton Mowbray starts with a measured survey of your house rather than a generic quotation. A two-storey extension adding living space below and bedrooms or bathrooms above, tied into the existing roof and first floor.

The technical crux on most Melton Mowbray projects is foundations for the greater load, the junction with the existing roof, first-floor structure and the escape and fire strategy for new bedrooms. We resolve these on paper first — with a structural engineer where the work needs one — and price the job on what is actually there.

Planning in Melton Mowbray: Two-storey rear extensions can fall within permitted development only under tight limits; most need a householder planning application, and the design has to respect neighbours' light and privacy. We check the constraints for your specific address, including any planning history, and tell you plainly which route applies before drawings are commissioned.

Why Melton Mowbray homeowners use a local design and build team

We are a local design and build contractor, not a national lead-generation site. Melton Mowbray is around 21 miles from Nottingham and inside our twenty-five mile working area, which means the same team that surveys your house is the one that designs it, prices it and builds it.

Cost is driven by footprint over two floors, roof form and junction, number of bathrooms, glazing and extent of first-floor re-planning. We do not publish a rate per square metre because it misleads more often than it helps; you receive an itemised, written fixed-price quotation after the survey so you can see what each element costs and what changes it.

We do not invent projects, reviews or statistics to fill a page. What we can promise is a written programme, weekly updates, building control certification handed over at the end, and a twelve-month defects period during which we return to put right anything that fails.

Planning permission in Melton Mowbray: Melton Borough Council

The local planning authority for Melton Mowbray is Melton Borough Council. Any application for your double-storey extension — householder planning permission, a lawful development certificate or prior approval — is submitted to Melton and decided against its adopted local plan and national policy. The council's planning team can be reached by email at developmentcontrol@melton.gov.uk, and applications are made through its own planning pages or the national Planning Portal.

Two-storey rear extensions can fall within permitted development only under tight limits; most need a householder planning application, and the design has to respect neighbours' light and privacy.

Permitted development: Work that stays inside the size, height, position and materials limits set nationally in the General Permitted Development Order needs no planning application. The limits are tighter on flats, on houses whose rights have been removed by a condition or an Article 4 direction, and on land in a conservation area, National Park or World Heritage Site.

Party walls sit outside the council process entirely. Not a council process at all: the Party Wall etc. Act 1996 is a private notice served on the neighbour when work affects a shared wall, cuts into it, or excavates near their foundations. It runs alongside planning and building control, and being told about it late is what usually delays a start on site.

Before anything is drawn we check your address for the things that change the route: whether permitted development rights have been removed by a condition or an Article 4 direction, whether the property is listed or in a conservation area, any earlier planning decisions on the site, and the position of boundaries and highways.

In practice the order is: constraints check → measured survey → design that fits the route we have identified → submission to Melton where an application is needed. Where the work is permitted development we recommend applying for a lawful development certificate, because it is the document that proves the position to a future buyer's solicitor.

Building regulations and building control in Melton Mowbray

Planning and building control are separate approvals. Even where your double-storey extension in Melton Mowbray needs no planning application, the building regulations still apply, and the work has to be notified. For Melton Mowbray that means Leicestershire Building Control Partnership, the shared service covering Melton, or a registered building control approver of your choice. We make the submission and manage it for you.

Building notice: A shorter route for straightforward work: the job is notified and then inspected as it proceeds, with no prior plan check. Faster to start, but the risk of a change being required mid-build sits with the owner.

Foundations for the greater load, the junction with the existing roof, first-floor structure and the escape and fire strategy for new bedrooms. Those are the elements building control looks at, alongside insulation and airtightness, fire safety and escape, ventilation, drainage, glazing, and the safety of electrical and any gas work.

Inspections happen at set stages rather than all at the end — typically excavation and foundations before concrete, drainage before it is covered, the structural frame or beams once installed, insulation and damp proofing before they are hidden, and a final inspection on completion. We book these and meet the inspector on site so nothing is buried before it is signed off.

At the end you are handed the building control completion certificate, structural calculations, electrical certification, gas paperwork where relevant, and any planning or lawful development documents. Keep them together: this is the pack a buyer's solicitor asks for when you sell.

The process, step by step

1. Site visit in Melton Mowbray: we measure, look at the constraints — boundaries, drainage, structure, roof — and talk about what is not working in the house now.

2. Options and cost range: sketch options with an honest range, before detailed drawings.

3. Approvals: permitted development check, lawful development certificate or planning application as your address requires, plus building control submission.

4. Engineering and fixed price: structural calculations completed, then a written fixed-price quotation with a stage programme.

5. Build: roughly sixteen to twenty-six weeks on site. Usually, though the phase where the roof and first floor are opened into the house is the most disruptive and is planned with you.

6. Completion: snagging closed out, building control completion certificate issued, defects period begins.

Types of double storey extensions we take on in Melton Mowbray

In Melton Mowbray and the surrounding area we take on two-storey rear extensions, two-storey side extensions, wrap-around double-storey extensions, master suite extensions, extensions adding a bedroom and family room and extensions replacing a single-storey lean-to. Housing stock varies street by street across Leicestershire, so each project is designed for the actual house rather than adapted from a standard drawing.

Read the full Double Storey Extensions guide for design options, planning rules and what drives cost.

Areas we cover near Melton Mowbray

From Melton Mowbray we also cover Asfordby, Bottesford and Grantham, and the wider Leicestershire area within roughly twenty-five miles of Nottingham. If you are just outside Melton Mowbray, tell us the postcode and we will confirm.

• Double Storey Extensions in Grantham

Talk to us about your Melton Mowbray project

The useful next step is a conversation about your actual house. Call us or send a WhatsApp message and we will arrange a visit to Melton Mowbray, look at the constraints properly, talk through the planning route for your address and follow up in writing with options and a realistic cost range.

Double Storey Extensions in Melton Mowbray: questions homeowners ask