Torbay has put numbers on it
Torbay's highways standing advice, revision 7 from February 2024, gives 6.0m by 3.3m for a single garage. A double should ideally be 6.0m by 6.6m, and no less than 6.0m by 5.8m.
Get a tape on yours. The advice doesn't say whether an undersized garage still counts as somewhere to park, so if yours comes up short, ask the planners rather than assume.
Usually none of this matters for a room inside your own walls. It matters once the conversion needs an application for some other reason. The same document lists a change of use of a garage among the small jobs its parking advice covers, and it repeats the Local Plan line that altering or subdividing a house must not take parking below the council's standards, town centre spots with good transport excepted. The Torquay Neighbourhood Plan adds that extra bedrooms get weighed against on-site parking.
Drives on a hillside
Lose the garage and the car lives on the drive, which on a Torquay hillside is rarely level. Torbay's advice wants a space at least 6m long where it sits in front of a garage door. A new or altered drive should be no steeper than 1 in 8, and 1 in 20 is the stated ideal. The first 5 metres must be properly surfaced, not loose gravel.
If the job includes widening the opening or regrading the slope, check those figures with the council before anyone digs.
How each conversion fits a Torquay house
In the order they tend to come up here. Each has a full guide.
Integral. Joined to the hall, so the cheapest to heat. On a sloping plot the back wall may be holding up earth, and that needs damp protection designed for it, not a coat of paint.
Single. The infill where the door was needs something to stand on. LABC's inspectors say to check what is there when it's dug out, and a lintel can carry the new wall where there's no footing.
Read our full guide: Single Garage Conversion: What Is Involved and What to Budget For →
Home office. The garage is the one room in a Torquay house with no chance of a sea view. Put the desk by the new window, and run a data cable through while the walls are open.
Bedroom. Reached only through another room, it needs a window big enough to climb out of. In Flood Zone 2 or 3, the Environment Agency expects a ground floor with no stairs up to have a way to a safe refuge above the flood level.
Utility or playroom. Where the garage is cold and partly below ground, this is the safer choice. A tiled utility asks less of the floor than a bedroom.
Detached. A detached garage used as the family's gym or office stays part of the house. Letting it out, or living in it as a separate home, is something else. The Planning Portal says a separate house may need permission whatever the building work.
Double. Measure it against Torbay's 6.6m before you decide anything. A part conversion that leaves a usable bay is only usable if a car actually fits.
Gym or studio. Rubber over a sound slab for weights, and a lined party wall if the garage adjoins next door's.
Planning and building control. Inside work rarely needs planning. A condition, a listing or a flat changes that. Sign-off for a habitable room is a separate matter, and the Planning Portal says it will normally be required.
Cost and value. No prices here. A garage dug into the hill, a slab that needs lifting and a new drive all show up in the quote, so get three builders to look.
Front walls, render and palm trees
Sixteen of Torbay's conservation areas are in Torquay. There are no Article 4 directions in the town, so the national rules apply as they stand. The appraisals still show what the council minds about. Abbey Road's describes rendered fronts behind walled front gardens, with Torquay palms in many. It complains that boundary features are being lost to off-street parking and that too many walls and gardens have gone to hardstanding. It also names doors and windows as the parts most often lost, and PVCu replacements that look nothing like the originals.
So render to match, a window in proportion with those above, and leave the front wall alone where you can. If the house is one of Torbay's 865 listed buildings, listed building consent may be needed. In a converted villa the garage often goes with one flat, and flats don't get the householder allowances, so speak to the planners and check the lease.
Drains, damp and sign-off
Torbay is a Critical Drainage Area, and the council asks for a flood risk assessment with most applications. There is a short form for a change of use in Flood Zone 1. For radon, look up your address on the UKradon map. The British Geological Survey says it shows where new buildings need protection built in.
Building control comes from Torbay Council's own service or a registered building control approver. Inspectors look at the floor first. LABC says the membrane must lap the damp course in the old walls, and the room has to be insulated to habitable standard with vents that open.
Where these facts come from
- Torbay Council: Highways Development Control Standing Advice, revision 7 (2024)
- Torbay Council: conservation area appraisals and Article 4 areas
- Torbay Council: Abbey Road conservation area appraisal
- Torbay Council: Warberries conservation area appraisal
- Torbay Council: flood risk assessments and the Critical Drainage Area
- Torbay Heritage Strategy 2021 to 2026
- Torbay Council: building control
- Flood risk assessment standing advice (GOV.UK)
- Planning Portal: garage conversion planning permission
- Planning Portal: garage conversion building regulations
- LABC: garage conversion tips from building control
- BGS: updated radon map for Great Britain
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Questions people in Torquay ask
Our single garage is under 3.3 metres wide. Does Torbay still treat it as a parking space?
The council's highways advice gives 6.0m by 3.3m as the required size but doesn't say what happens to a smaller one. If your conversion needs an application, ask the planners how they will count it before you submit.
The garage is dug into the slope under our house. Is that harder to convert?
Usually, yes. The back wall holds up soil, so it needs damp protection planned for that, and the floor may need lifting. Bring building control in at the design stage.
We own the ground floor flat in a converted villa and the garage is ours. Can we turn it into a room?
Maybe, but treat it as a planning question first. The Planning Portal says the permitted development allowances don't cover flats. Your lease and the freeholder will have a say as well.
If we park on the drive instead, does it have to meet the council's gradient?
Torbay's figure of no steeper than 1 in 8, with the first 5 metres surfaced, sits in its advice on new and altered accesses. If you're leaving the drive alone, ask the planners whether it is looked at at all.