House Extensions in Pagham
Making a bungalow bigger, not taller
Pagham is a village of bungalows and single-storey living, strung out between the harbour and the sea, and most of the extension work we are asked for here follows from that. People are not trying to add a floor. They are trying to make the house they intend to stay in bigger on the level it already has: the back wall out, the kitchen into a new room on the garden, a bedroom and a wet room added on one side so that nobody has to go upstairs, ever. A bungalow is the easiest house in England to extend without a staircase, and a good many of our Pagham enquiries are exactly that.
The housing makes it straightforward. Detached and semi-detached post-war bungalows on good plots through the village and Nyetimber, chalets and former holiday homes nearer the beach, most with room at the back or the side and a roof that can be hipped, gabled or taken flat with lanterns to suit. The roof is the decision on a bungalow extension, and it is the one we talk through first, because how the new ceiling line meets the old one is what makes the finished room feel built-in rather than bolted on.
The ground decides more here than the council does
Arun District Council is the planning authority, and for an ordinary bungalow extension it is a straightforward one: a single-storey rear extension up to four metres deep on a detached house, three on a semi, extendable to eight and six through prior approval where neighbours do not object; four metres maximum height; side extensions to half the original width. Most Pagham jobs sit inside those limits and need a lawful development certificate rather than an application, and we apply for it so the position is on paper.
What makes Pagham different is underneath. Away from the front, the ground is coastal silt and marine clay with the water table close to the surface. Foundations often want extra depth before they find anything worth bearing on, and land drainage goes in deliberately so groundwater is not trapped behind a slab you have only just poured. None of that is a reason not to build. It is a reason to dig a trial hole before pricing the footings, which we do, and to price the foundations from what it shows rather than from a drawing done in an office.
The beach estate and the flood map
Nearer the front, the Environment Agency's warning area is coastal rather than fluvial and covers the beach side of the village, and Arun applies extra scrutiny to anything on the Pagham Beach Estate because of the coastal processes along it. The council adopted an interim development framework for the estate in 2021 and has looked at a Coastal Change Management Area, and it states plainly that neither it nor the Environment Agency has a duty to protect that frontage from erosion or flooding. In practice a job on the beach side needs its flood risk and its drainage thought about at the drawing stage, finished floor levels may need to be set with the flood map in mind, and sometimes a flood risk assessment goes in with the application. We tell you which side of that line your house is on at the first visit.
Level access, built in rather than bolted on
A lot of Pagham extensions are really about the next twenty years. A new bedroom and wet room on the ground floor, a wider door, a floor with no step from the old house into the new one, a shower with no tray to climb over. It is cheaper to build that in now than to come back for it, and it is the kind of work we are doing in the village: our next job here is a level-access wet room on Rose Green Road, priced in stages so the client pays as each part is finished. If that is the real brief, say so at the visit and the extension is drawn around it.
The weather is the specification
Anything facing the sea or the harbour gets the full weather. A4 marine-grade stainless fixings, powder-coated aluminium doors and windows, and a silicone render system that will take wind-driven rain are the specification on an exposed elevation, because standard exterior ironmongery on this coast will not see out three years.
What it costs here
A Pagham extension is priced on the same rates as one in Bognor Regis, where a 50m² rear extension is running on Victoria Road now. The bands are on the price guide, before VAT. What moves a Pagham figure is the ground — deeper footings and drainage are real lines, not contingencies — and the roof choice. The quotation after the visit runs past two hundred itemised lines, with skips, scaffold and waste inside it, so you can see what the trial hole cost you and what it did not.
Where to start
The wider service is house extensions; the town page is house extensions in Bognor Regis, and the village is on builders in Pagham. If the roof is the better answer than the garden, see loft conversions in Pagham; if the bathroom is the real job, bathrooms and wet rooms in Bognor Regis.
Tell us whether the house is on the beach side of the village and which way the back faces, and the quotation will say what the ground and the flood position mean for your job. Send us your drawings or ring 07470 078236. Building around Bognor Regis since 2008, £2m public liability with employers' liability alongside it, quotations itemised line by line.