9.1 road miles west of Bournemouth
skylights & rooflights in upton
The parish has been Lytchett Minster and Upton since 1986, with estate housing on the roads off the A35 and older roofs in the village. We measure each one, and the estate roofs share a pattern.
the estate roofs of Upton
- Detached estate housesTwo-storey, concrete tile, garages attached at the side.
- BungalowsSingle storey with a roof void over the hall.
- Linked and semi-detached homesShared party walls, regular rafters, a loft to convert.
- Older village housesTowards Lytchett Minster, with uneven timbers.
the authority for an Upton roof
- planning authority
- Dorset Council
- planning authority
- Dorset Council, not BCP
- road miles
- 9.1
estate tile and old brick
a suburb built largely as estates
Upton is a large built-up area that runs into the urban edge of Poole, with Upton Country Park and Upton Wood between it and Holes Bay. The council that handles planning here is Dorset Council, which matters when you look up an address.
Estate roofs with a family likeness
Much of Upton is estate housing, so many of its roofs have a lot in common.
Upton is far larger than the village it is paired with, and most of its roads are estates of detached houses, linked houses, semis and bungalows. Many share the features you would expect of estate building: concrete interlocking tiles, shallow to medium pitches, integral or side garages, and loft spaces that are accessed by a hatch on the landing.
Houses built in those years commonly have trussed rafters, the factory-made triangular frames that form the whole roof structure at regular spacings. A truss carries load as a whole unit, so a rafter that is part of one cannot simply be cut for a window. For a roof like this we look first for a size that fits between two trusses, and only consider anything wider when an engineer has designed the support and the opening is approved through Building Regulations.
Another feature of an older estate is the thermal standard. A house built decades ago was designed to an energy standard well below today's, and a rooflight added now has to meet the current one. The numbers are fixed for existing homes. Any rooflight newly fitted to an Upton house has to achieve 2.2 W/m²K. Roof windows on Upton houses carry the stricter limit, 1.4 W/m²K, unless the unit holds an energy rating of Band B. Those figures apply whenever a window or lantern is added or replaced on an Upton house, and we match the glazing specification to them before ordering.
Loft use varies from house to house. Some Upton lofts were boarded years ago for storage and have a fixed ladder; others still have the original hatch and bare joists. A boarded loft is easy to survey, because we can walk it and take the readings without moving anything. A bare one needs boards laid across the joists first, so we bring them. In either case the roof is measured at the rafters or the truss members themselves, and the figures go on the written survey sheet you keep.
Pitch is the other early reading. Estate roofs can be shallower than a Victorian roof, and every roof window and its flashing is rated by its maker for a stated range of pitches. We take the pitch with an inclinometer on the slope you want to use and check it against the range for the model before anything is ordered. A flatter slope also sheds less water, which matters for flashing choice.
- year the parish took the name Lytchett Minster and Upton
- 1986
- Part L benchmark for any new rooflight put into an established home
- 2.2 W/m²K
- target for a new roof window, or Band B
- 1.4 W/m²K
Estate house or village house
Upton and Lytchett Minster share a parish and a council, but the houses are different.
The civil parish is called Lytchett Minster and Upton, and the two places are not alike. Lytchett Minster is an older village a short way to the west, and its historic core has been a conservation area since 1998, with the boundary altered in 2008. Upton is a much larger suburban area that merges with the urban edge of Poole. The older cottages and farm buildings in the village have been retiled and altered over centuries, and their roofs are irregular in a way the estates are not.
That affects almost every decision about a rooflight. On an estate house the main questions are rafter or truss spacing and the loft height. On a village house they are the age of the timbers, the covering (clay tile, slate or, in older buildings, thatch) and whether the building is listed. Next door to each other in the same parish, the two kinds of house ask for different handling, and the two lists show how.
Several homes in the area back onto green space or sit near Upton Country Park, whose house, built in the early nineteenth century for Christopher Spurrier, is listed Grade II*. The park itself belongs to BCP Council, which was given the estate as Poole Corporation in 1957. Being close to a listed building does not by itself bring the rules into play for your own house, but the council's maps will show whether your address sits in a conservation area or is itself listed.
Between the two sit the roads that grew up around the edge of the older settlement, where a modern house stands beside a much older building. A survey there starts from the individual house, because a neighbour's roof says little about yours. Our roof lantern work, for example, tends to follow the extension on the back of the house, whatever the street around it looks like.
Access also differs. A drive and an open front garden make staging easy on an estate. A village lane can be single-width, with a hedge or wall close to the house. We work out where a tower stands and where materials are unloaded before the survey sheet is written, so the quote reflects the real day.
An Upton estate house
- Trussed roof, regular spacing
- Concrete tile, easy to lift and relay
- Planning rights depend on the original permission
- Loft access through a landing hatch
A Lytchett Minster village house
- Older timbers, spacing that varies
- Clay tile or slate
- Check for listing and conservation status first
- Access can be tight on a lane
Planning here sits with Dorset Council
Upton lies beside Poole, but it is not covered by BCP Council.
A lot of Upton owners assume their council is BCP, because the postal address says Poole. Planning for the Lytchett Minster and Upton parish is handled by Dorset Council. That means the conservation area map, the planning register and the householder application forms all live on Dorset Council's website, and the advice that applies to Poole streets does not carry over automatically.
The permitted development rules for rooflights are national, and we have set them out in the planning guide. What is local is whether anything has taken those rights away at your address, either through a direction or through a condition on the original permission for the house. An estate house was built under a permission that may carry conditions, and the decision notice for the estate will show them. Searching the register by address is the way to find out.
Building Regulations are separate again. Cutting a new opening in a roof needs approval, and a whole replacement window is notifiable. The route is through Dorset Council's building control team or a registered building control approver, and we explain the choice when we write up the survey. The terms most people meet when they start looking are explained here.
If you find a decision notice for your house, look for any line that mentions permitted development, roof alterations or windows in the roof. Those are the lines that matter for a rooflight. If there is no such line, the standard rights for a house apply, subject to what the council's maps say about the address. If the notice is unclear, the planning department can confirm in writing.
Dorset Council also publishes its conservation area boundaries, with a character appraisal and boundary map for Lytchett Minster among its former Purbeck areas. The parish includes Lytchett Minster village, whose older core lies inside that conservation area, so check any address there closely. A search of the National Heritage List for England by address will show whether a house is listed, in which case listed building consent is the deciding question.
Planning words for an Upton householder
- Local planning authority
- The council that handles planning applications for your address, which in Upton is Dorset Council.
- Planning register
- The public record of applications and decisions on a property, searchable online by address.
- Condition
- A requirement attached to a planning permission, which can limit later changes such as new roof openings.
- Lawful development certificate
- A formal confirmation from the council that proposed works are lawful without a planning application.
- Registered building control approver
- A private body registered to check that building work meets the regulations, as an alternative to the council service.
- Listed building consent
- The separate consent required for work to a listed building, whatever the roof slope.
Landings, garages and kitchens
The rooms that need rooflights on an Upton estate are not always the obvious ones.
Many Upton houses have a landing with no window at all, and a bathroom or en-suite that depends on an extractor and a light switch. Both sit directly under the loft, so a sun tunnel or a small roof window can bring light straight down. The loft on a trussed roof is often full of web members that cross the space, which is why we survey the run from the ceiling to the tiles before choosing between them.
Garage conversions are common on this kind of estate, and the converted room often ends up with just one window facing the road or the drive. A flat roof rooflight works where the garage has a flat or lean-to roof, and a pitched roof window works where it sits under the main roof. The same applies to rear extensions and conservatories that have been re-roofed with a solid roof. Our roof window page covers the pitched options.
The rooms we are asked about most often, and the option that tends to suit each, are in the list. Neighbouring Creekmoor and Lytchett Minster have similar mixes.
An open-plan kitchen at the back of a house is another regular request. Where the extension has a flat roof, a flat rooflight or a lantern lets light in from above and lifts a kitchen that otherwise draws everything from a single set of doors. We measure the kerb, the fall and the opening, then give the size on the survey sheet. For a house with a pitched rear roof, a pair of roof windows side by side can give a similar result.
In every case the first measurement is the same: the actual roof, taken from inside the loft and from outside on the slope. A drawing from the estate's original build, or a photograph from the street, can mislead, because later alterations are common. The survey sheet records what is really there.
| Room | Option | What we measure |
|---|---|---|
| Landing | Sun tunnel or small roof window | Loft run to the ceiling |
| En-suite or bathroom | Sun tunnel | Tube length and bends |
| Loft bedroom | Roof window | Truss spacing, knee height |
| Converted garage | Flat rooflight or roof window | Roof type and fall |
| Kitchen extension | Flat rooflight or lantern | Kerb height, opening size |
faq
what Upton owners ask us
I have a Poole postcode in Upton. Does BCP Council handle my planning?
No. Upton is covered by Dorset Council for planning, so its register and conservation map are the ones to search for your address.
Can I fit a roof window to a trussed roof on an estate house?
Yes, if a window size fits between two trusses without cutting either. Wider openings need an engineer's design and Building Regulations approval before any timber is touched.
Which roofs do you work on around Lytchett Minster?
Tiled and slated pitched roofs, and flat roofs on extensions and garages. We survey the covering first so the flashing and kerb match it.
How do I find out whether a planning condition affects my Upton house?
Search Dorset Council's planning register by address and open the decision notice for the original permission. We can run the same search when we survey.