Do I need planning permission in Slough?

Planning permission in Slough catches more homeowners off guard than you'd expect. The borough looks straightforward on paper — no National Park, no AONB, no World Heritage Site — but there are enough local complications that what's fine for your neighbour might not be fine for you. Tools like WhatCanIBuild exist precisely because the gap between 'I think I'm allowed' and 'I can prove I'm allowed' is wider than most people realise.

Green Belt and conservation areas change everything

Green Belt land covers parts of Slough, and if your property sits within it, the planning rules that apply to you are meaningfully different from those that apply elsewhere in the borough. Most homeowners don't realise this until they're already mid-project. Slough's 5 conservation areas add another layer — in those zones, changes that would normally fall under permitted development can require a full application. The streets affected aren't always obvious, and the restrictions aren't always consistent from one side of a road to the other.

Listed buildings are their own category entirely. With around 105 listed buildings recorded in Slough, there's a real chance your property — or a neighbouring one — carries designations that affect what you can alter, even internally.

Article 4 directions and the rules nobody warns you about

Even outside conservation areas, councils can remove permitted development rights through something called an Article 4 direction. These are applied at street or neighbourhood level and are notoriously easy to miss. If one covers your property, works you assumed were automatically permitted could require a planning application — and if you've already started, that becomes a much bigger problem.

Flood zones are another variable in Slough. Parts of the borough fall within areas where additional checks apply, and that can affect extensions, outbuildings, and even landscaping in ways that aren't immediately obvious.

What your neighbours did isn't a reliable guide

This is the part most homeowners get wrong. You see a similar extension two doors down and assume the same rules apply to you. But planning decisions are made at the individual property level. A different plot size, a slightly different boundary, a designation that applies to your side of the street but not theirs — any of these can produce a completely different outcome. What was approved nearby tells you something, but not nearly enough.

The best way to understand what's actually been approved and refused for properties like yours — on your street, with your combination of constraints — is to use WhatCanIBuild. It goes beyond the basic rules to show you how your specific address sits within Slough's planning picture, and what that realistically means for your project.

Before you assume, check

Most people either assume permission isn't needed and proceed, or assume it is needed and do nothing. Both approaches carry risk. The £548 application fee and 8-week decision window matter less than getting the initial question right: does your project, at your property, in your part of Slough, actually need permission?

WhatCanIBuild gives you a property-specific answer — not a borough-wide generalisation — including the local approval patterns that tell you how projects like yours have actually played out.