Seven metres by three: Reading's idea of a usable garage
Reading Borough Council set out its parking standards in a design document adopted in October 2011, and the local plan of 2019 confirms it still applies. For a single garage it recommends an inside length of 7 metres and a width of 3 metres. A double should be 7 metres by 5.5.
Get the tape measure out. Older garages often come up short of that, and once the freezer and bikes are in, the car lives on the drive anyway. If yours is well under the council's figure, converting it costs you storage, not a real parking space.
Most of Reading never had garages to begin with. The council's 2013 survey of private housing found 28% of it dated from before 1919, mainly terraces with no room for a car. It put almost a fifth of private homes in the decade from 1965 and over a quarter after 1980. If your house has a built-in or attached garage, it almost certainly belongs to that later housing.
Paving the front for a replacement space
The 2011 document has a rule many owners miss. It says that if converting a garage that was built for a car would lead to more parking on the front of the property, on top of the drive you already have, the council is likely to restrict that extra permanent parking. Its stated aim is to stop plots being overdeveloped or paved over.
So don't plan on giving up the garage and then tarmacking the lawn for a second car. The council wants a drive in front of a garage to be at least 6 metres deep to the highway boundary, and where a car parks in a front garden, no part of it should hang over the footway.
Picking a use for the space
Integral. Built into the house, usually with a bedroom above, so the walls and roof are already shared with the home. Before drawings, check the estate's planning permission, because the Planning Portal warns that rights to convert are sometimes taken away on newer developments.
Single. The commonest job on Reading's post-war estates. Footings under the old door opening are often shallow, and the new wall below ground needs bricks and mortar that stand up to frost and sulphates.
Read our full guide: Single Garage Conversion: What Is Involved and What to Budget For →
Double. With two bays you can give half to a room and still park under cover. That counts for more here, given how the council views extra frontage parking.
Bedroom. If the only way in is through another room, LABC says you need a window big enough to escape through and a smoke alarm outside. Landlords take note. In parts of Park, Redlands and Katesgrove an Article 4 direction means turning a family house into a small shared house needs planning permission, extra bedroom or not.
Home office. A study by the front door keeps work calls away from the family. It still needs heating, insulation and fresh air. Run the network cable before the plasterboard goes up.
Utility or playroom. The cheap, sensible option, and the right one near the Thames in Lower Caversham or by the Kennet in Southcote, where homes flooded in January 2024. A washing machine can be moved. A child's bed on the ground floor is a bigger worry.
Gym or studio. Rubber matting on an insulated slab and acoustic lining do more good than fancy kit. On a semi, mind the party side.
Detached. Used by the household as a workshop or den, it stays part of the house. Fit it out as a separate home and the Planning Portal says permission may be required whatever the building work involved.
Planning and approval. Keep the work inside the existing shell and planning is rarely an issue, unless a condition, an Article 4 direction or a listing says otherwise. Building control sign-off is a different matter and applies to nearly every conversion into a habitable room.
Cost. We don't publish Reading prices. The footing under the old door and the state of the slab move the quote most, so get three priced on the same drawings.
Floors, fronts and sign-off
Garage floors sit lower than the house and were never meant to be lived on. The Planning Portal's guidance covers the floor, the walls below ground, ventilation and the infilled door, and LABC asks for the new floor membrane to lap the damp course in the old walls. Ask how the existing slab will be checked before anyone quotes for a new floor on top of it.
Radon is a separate check. Look your address up on the UKradon map and tell your builder the result.
Out front, the brick matters. On the patterned brick terraces under Article 4, the council says every permitted development right has gone, so new windows in the front wall need an application. Elsewhere, match the brick and line the new window up with the ones above it.
Inside the borough, building control is the council's own team at the Civic Centre. Email building.control@reading.gov.uk with the details, and file the completion certificate with the deeds. Earley and parts of Tilehurst fall under other councils, so check yours.
Where these facts come from
- Reading Borough Council: Revised Parking Standards and Design SPD (2011)
- Reading Borough Local Plan (2019): Policy TR5 extract
- Reading Borough Council: Private Sector Housing Stock Condition Report
- Reading Borough Council: Article 4 directions
- Reading Borough Council: report on the January 2024 flooding
- Reading Borough Council: contact building control
- Planning Portal: garage conversion planning permission
- Planning Portal: garage conversion building regulations
- Planning Portal: walls below ground level
- LABC: garage conversion tips from building control
- BGS: updated radon map for Great Britain
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Questions people in Reading ask
Our garage is 5.5 metres long inside. Does Reading still treat it as a parking space?
The council's 2011 parking standards recommend 7 metres by 3 for a single garage, so yours falls well short of the figure the council uses for new garages. Losing it is mostly losing storage.
Can we pave the front garden for a second car after converting the garage?
Expect resistance. Reading's parking standards say the council is likely to restrict extra permanent parking on the frontage where a garage conversion would lead to it. Plan around the drive you have now.
I let out a house near the university in Redlands. Can I turn the garage into another bedroom?
The building work is a building control matter. The use is a planning one. If the house is still a family home, an Article 4 direction there means changing it into a small shared house needs permission first.
We live in Lower Caversham. Is a ground-floor bedroom in the garage a bad idea?
The area flooded in January 2024 and sits close to the Thames. A utility room, study or gym will cope with water far better than a bedroom. Check the house on the Environment Agency's flood map before you decide.