North Cornwall · EX22
Week St Mary loft conversion — feasibility first, drawings second
A well-designed loft conversion adds a bedroom, an en-suite and useful storage to homes that were never built with the upper floor in mind — usually inside permitted development and almost always cheaper per square metre than extending sideways. Anchor any Week St Mary loft conversion in the local fabric and the rest follows — Week St Mary is a rural parish in the EX22 area, with farmsteads, lanes and scattered homes defining its built character, with a building stock that leans toward scattered modern homes and rural cottages.
Week St Mary sits in North Cornwall — covering EX22 from Bude, Stratton, Poughill outward.
- Rural / open-countryside policy area
- ✓ rural policy area experience built into the fee
- ✓ Cornwall Council regulars across every sub-area
- ✓ Free first site visit, no obligation
- ✓ Plain-English feasibility before any drawings
Who this is for
Week St Mary runs the full mix — owner-occupier, holiday-let, commercial and the occasional smallholding — so we scope every loft conversion enquiry from the use-class up.
Local watch-list
The EX22 constraints that shape a loft conversion brief.
Watch #1
Tighter Local Plan tests on isolated rural dwellings
Local proof — Recent loft conversion enquiries from Week St Mary have clustered around scattered modern homes — we know the route through Cornwall Council on these.
Get a free feasibility viewFAQs
Week St Mary Loft Conversions — local questions answered.
- Do I need planning permission for a loft conversion?
- Often no — most loft conversions sit inside permitted development on a typical Cornish house. Conservation Areas, AONB and properties on principal elevations need full planning, and we'll confirm at first review. In Week St Mary specifically, we'd start by checking the latest parish-level planning history before committing to a direction.
- How much does a loft conversion cost?
- A simple Velux conversion starts around £30,000 in Cornwall; a rear dormer with en-suite typically runs £45,000 to £65,000; hip-to-gable and mansards more. Stair location and bathroom complexity drive most of the cost.
- How long does a loft conversion take?
- Allow six to ten weeks on site for a Velux conversion, eight to fourteen weeks for a dormer, twelve to eighteen weeks for hip-to-gable. Add four to eight weeks for design and regs beforehand.
- Will it add value?
- An extra bedroom and bathroom typically adds noticeably more value than the build cost in most Cornish markets — but the value matters less than the daily use you'll get from the space.
- Can I live downstairs while it's built?
- Yes — most loft conversions are built with the family staying in the house. There'll be a couple of disruptive days when the staircase comes through, but the bulk of the work is upstairs.
Local context
Why Week St Mary is its own job.
Locally, open-countryside policy, access lanes, drainage and agricultural building history all need to be addressed before drawings go too far. For loft conversion specifically, Cornwall Council's Local Plan applies tighter tests to isolated rural dwellings here, so design rationale and policy fit need to be set out clearly from the outset. Which is why we scope Week St Mary projects parish-up, not template-down — the EX22 context shapes the design from day one. Whether the project is on scattered modern homes in the centre or further out toward Bude, the loft conversion response is locally tuned.
Planning note
Most Cornish loft conversions are permitted development — but a Certificate of Lawfulness is worth the extra week and small fee for resale protection.
What we focus on
Loft Conversions considerations specific to Week St Mary.
01
Permitted development volume allowances are 40 cubic metres on a terrace and 50 on a detached or semi — but rear dormers in Conservation Areas often need full planning.
02
Cornish slate roofs come in a huge range of pitches — anything below a 30° pitch struggles to give usable headroom without raising the ridge.
03
Building regs require minimum 2.0 metre headroom over the stairs and 30-minute fire protection on the existing stair enclosure — both shape the design.
04
Cut-roof Cornish properties are easier to convert than modern trussed roofs; the structural strategy varies completely.
Our process
How a Week St Mary loft conversion project runs.
Step 1
Feasibility
Roof, headroom, stair landing and structural assessment.
Step 2
Design
Layout options that respect the staircase, headroom and bathroom positioning.
Step 3
Approvals
Planning or permitted development confirmation, plus building regs.
Step 4
Build
Sequenced to keep the family living downstairs throughout most of the work.
Step 5
Handover
Finish, snag, certify, hand over the keys.
Loft conversions typically run six to eighteen weeks on site depending on type, with four to eight weeks of design and approvals beforehand.
Local fabric
Choosing a loft conversion team that actually knows EX22.
Building stock
Across Week St Mary (EX22) we work on farmhouses, converted barns, rural cottages, smallholdings, scattered modern homes. Each stock type drives a different loft conversion response — scattered modern homes in particular needs careful detailing here.
Parish & policy
Week St Mary sits in the parish of Week St Mary, which matters for how parish-level consultation lands on a loft conversion application.
Coverage
We cover EX22 from our studio, with regular loft conversion jobs also running in Bude, Stratton, Poughill. Most Week St Mary site visits get booked within the same week.
What does a first Week St Mary consultation cost?
Nothing. We come to the property, walk the site, talk through what works on a EX22 plot and follow up with a written feasibility note inside a week — no obligation either way.
Request a free visitWeek St Mary is part of Bude
Week St Mary sits inside the Bude catchment — we cover both as one loft conversion territory.
See Loft Conversions in Bude →Other services in Week St Mary
Nearby places we cover
A loft conversion in Week St Mary stands or falls on how well it reads the street — we treat that as the design brief, not an afterthought.