What each council publishes
Conservation areas are designated by local councils, so the list sits with the council that covers your address. The counts below are the ones each council publishes on its own website, and they are worth reading as the size of the job, not as a verdict on your street.
| Council | Published position |
|---|---|
| Thanet | 27 conservation areas |
| Canterbury | 97 conservation areas |
| Dover | 57 conservation areas |
| Swale | 51 designated conservation areas |
| Folkestone & Hythe | No count given; use its map |
Thanet's list takes in Margate, Margate Seafront and several separate Cliftonville areas, followed by places such as Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Birchington, Minster and Westgate on Sea. Check the council's page for the area by name, and then for its boundary.
A count tells you how long the list is, not whether your road is on it. The page or map behind the count does that.
Neighbouring councils do not share a list. A house close to the boundary between two districts is judged by the council whose area it falls in, so use that council's page, not the one nearest to where you work or shop.
The national map
The government's planning data site, planning.data.gov.uk, carries conservation area boundaries that councils have supplied. Its map shows those outlines, which saves reading a long appraisal document and gives you a first answer quickly.
Treat it as a starting point. The data is only as complete as the council's submission, and a boundary on a map does not tell you the date a conservation area was made or what its rules are. Dates come from the council's own table, not from the dataset.
The same caution applies to anything that does not appear. A missing outline does not prove there is no conservation area. It may mean the boundary has not been supplied or the map has not caught up, and a stray entry in a dataset can also be mislabelled, so one result on its own settles nothing.
So use the map to narrow the question, then go to the council for the answer. Keep a note of what each source said on the day you looked, with a screenshot if you can, because boundaries are reviewed and extended over time.
Asking the planning team
The reliable route is simply to ask. The planning team of your district council can say whether your address is inside a conservation area, and what that means for the work you have in mind. A good enquiry carries four things:
- The full address and postcode.
- The job: which slopes, and whether the covering will change.
- A request to confirm in writing whether a conservation area or an Article 4 direction applies.
- A request to say whether the job needs an application.
Never rely on a neighbour's answer. Boundaries run through streets, and two houses of similar age can sit on either side of one. Do not write the question off because the house is modern either: a boundary can take in newer buildings along with older ones.
If the planning team answers with a link instead of a yes or no, reply and ask for one line confirming that your address is covered or not covered. A link to a map is a pointer, not a decision.
Keep the reply with the quote. The roofer and the council are then working from the same piece of paper, and nobody has to remember what was said on the phone.
What it changes for a roof
Being in a conservation area does not stop roof work. It changes which permitted development rights apply, and it is one of the categories of article 2(3) land, which removes Class B, the dormer right. It does not remove Class C, which normally covers putting a new covering on a house.
Councils add their own advice. Dover says that in a conservation area some normally permitted work, including building roof dormers, needs permission. Thanet's page says work that matches the existing roof, like for like, will need planning permission less often.
Two neighbouring checks are separate and worth making. A direction can withdraw further rights, as our answer on Article 4 directions and roofs explains. In Canterbury, the World Heritage Site has its own rule, set out in our answer on the Canterbury World Heritage Site. For a listed house, see roof repairs on listed buildings.
Around Margate and Thanet, the consent route is sorted out first, before any scaffold is booked, so the quote reflects it from the start.
