Chapelgarth and the one-space test
On Sunderland's newer southern streets the council has already described how the car is meant to fit. Its South Sunderland Growth Area document, adopted in 2020, describes the houses built since the late 1990s at Chapelgarth Phase 1a and Rushford as detached two storey homes with parking in integrated garages and little formal parking on the road.
That matters because of one paragraph. The Development Management guidance the council adopted in June 2021 asks any alteration to a house to keep at least one off-street space, in line with its parking standards, unless the highways authority agrees otherwise. It gives the reason plainly. Lose a space and more cars end up parked in the street.
Planning only comes into it if your house needs an application at all. Work that stays inside the garage usually doesn't. But the same document warns that permitted development rights have been withdrawn from some houses and whole neighbourhoods. Use the council's pre-application service to find out if yours is one, and get the answer in writing.
Matching the conversion to the house
Integral garage. Found on the late 1990s and later estates south of the city, where the garage sits inside the footprint of the house. Check whether the planning permission for your street left the right to convert intact.
Single garage. Most likely on a semi or detached house from the 1960s to the 1980s. The council's housing survey put roughly half the city's homes in the 1945 to 1984 bracket. The old opening probably sits on a thin slab, so the new wall under the window may want a proper footing.
Read our full guide: Single Garage Conversion: What Is Involved and What to Budget For →
Study or office. The easiest use to defend if the drive is short. The house stays one home.
Extra bedroom. Fine for your own family. In a let house in the HMO wards, read the section below first.
Detached garage. Some Sunderland cottages gained a garage in the back yard, opening onto the lane, from the 1920s onward. Used as a workshop or hobby room by the household, it typically needs no planning application. Someone living out there as a separate home is a different matter.
Double garage. Rarer, and mostly on big detached houses such as the four and five bedroom homes the council describes at The Fold and Lodgeside Meadow. Keeping half as parking is the simplest way to stay inside the council's one-space test.
Utility or playroom. A utility is the cheapest way to use a cold garage. Work out where the bikes and the wheelie bins will live before the door comes out, because the garage was probably where they went.
Gym or studio. A back-lane garage behind a cottage makes a decent workshop or practice room, since it stands apart from the house. Put a proper floor down before the rubber mats and the weights.
Planning and building control. Planning hangs on your street's history and where you live. Building control applies to almost any room you will heat and use.
Cost and value. No figures here. On a house that relied on its garage for parking, the value question is partly whether a buyer can still get a car off the road.
Back lanes, shared houses, Roker fronts
The Sunderland cottage was built long before cars. The Tyne and Wear historic environment record notes that garages started appearing in cottage back yards from the 1920s, and plenty still open onto the back lanes in Millfield and Hendon. None were built to be lived in. Expect building control to look hard at the whole shell.
Several of those streets also fall inside the council's HMO direction. Since December 2013 it has covered the Barnes, Hendon, Millfield, St Michael's and St Peter's wards, and there a family house can't become a shared house for three to six unrelated people without planning permission. Turning the garage into a bedroom for a let is the kind of change that can tip a house over that line.
On the protected terraces the front is the issue. Article 4 directions around Roker Park, and on Azalea Terrace North and two other Ashbrooke streets, bring front windows and doors under planning control. A garage door replaced by brick and a window on one of those fronts needs an application. The council wants the materials to match the house as closely as possible.
Under the floor and the old door
Expect the garage floor to sit lower than the hall. The Planning Portal says the existing concrete is usually strong enough but must be given a membrane against damp and insulation on top, and many owners raise it to meet the house. Check your address on the UKradon map before the floor is designed.
Under the old door, the Portal suggests digging beside the existing foundation to find its depth. Sunderland sits on Coal Measures, so glance at the government's coal mining map too. If you are near the Wear at Fatfield, a bedroom at ground level deserves a look at the flood map before you settle on it.
Sunderland City Council runs its own building control team at City Hall. If an earlier owner converted the garage without approval, the council offers a regularisation application, which is worth knowing before you sell.
Where these facts come from
- Sunderland City Council: Development Management SPD, June 2021
- Sunderland City Council: Development Management SPD adoption statement
- Sunderland City Council: South Sunderland Growth Area SPD, June 2020
- Sunderland City Council: HMO SPD, December 2020
- Tyne and Wear HER: Sunderland cottages
- Roker Park Character Appraisal (Article 4 directions)
- Ashbrooke Character Appraisal (Article 4 directions)
- Planning Portal: garage conversion planning permission
- Planning Portal: converting a garage into a workshop
- Planning Portal: garage conversion building regulations
- Planning Portal: in-fill garage door
- Planning Portal: garage conversion flooring
- GOV.UK: home extensions in former coal mining areas
- UKHSA: UK radon map
- Sunderland City Council: apply for building regulations
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Questions people in Sunderland ask
We bought at Chapelgarth. Can we turn the integral garage into a playroom?
Possibly, but check two things. Ask the council's pre-application service whether conditions on the estate limit the change, and look at whether your drive still holds a car. The council's guidance expects one off-street space to be kept.
Our cottage in Millfield has a brick garage on the back lane. Can it be a bedroom for our son?
As part of the family home, it is mostly a building control job, and expect the shell to need real work. If the room is let separately or the house is shared by unrelated tenants, speak to planning first, because Millfield is in the HMO direction area.
Can I put a uPVC window where the garage door was on Park Avenue in Roker?
The Roker Park direction covers front windows and doors on the park terraces, so you would need permission. Show the conservation team the design before ordering anything.
Our Doxford Park semi has a garage and a drive for one car. Would losing the garage count against us?
Only if the conversion needs an application in the first place. If it does, the council's 2021 guidance asks for at least one off-street space to be kept, measured against its parking standards, unless highways agree otherwise. A drive that still takes a car puts you in a good position.