Builders in Pulborough

Pulborough is unusual. Most places in Horsham District have one conservation area or none. Pulborough has two, covering different parts of the village, designated separately: Church Place and Lower Street.

Add National Park land nearby and there are three distinct planning positions inside one village.

The two conservation areas

They are separate designations with separate boundaries. Being outside one says nothing about the other.

Inside either, the same article 2(3) restrictions apply:

• No side extensions under permitted development
• No two-storey rear extensions
• No permitted development loft conversions — every dormer needs an application
• No cladding
• The larger home extension scheme is unavailable — rear extensions capped at 4 metres detached, 3 metres otherwise
• Windows, external doors, solar panels, and fences or walls facing a highway all need permission

And trees with a trunk over 75mm diameter at 1.5 metres are protected, with six weeks’ notice required before any work. Applications are free.

The National Park question

Parts of the area to the south fall within the South Downs National Park, where the South Downs National Park Authority decides applications instead of Horsham District Council. The boundary follows landscape rather than parish lines.

If you are inside it, you are dealing with a different authority entirely — different portal, different local plan, different pre-application service. More on which authority decides.

So the first job is establishing where you are

Four possibilities, and they lead to genuinely different projects:

1. Outside everything — full permitted development rights. A rear extension of 4 metres detached or 3 metres otherwise with no application at all.
2. In Church Place conservation area — Horsham District Council decides, article 2(3) restrictions apply.
3. In Lower Street conservation area — same restrictions, separate designation and boundary.
4. In the National Park — the Park Authority decides, and article 2(3) restrictions apply.

Check the address against the council’s mapping tool. Do not reason from the village name or from what a neighbour built.

The river

Worth mentioning because it is specific to here: Pulborough sits on the Arun, and parts of the surrounding land are low-lying. Where a site is in a flood zone, that brings its own requirements — flood risk assessment, finished floor levels, sometimes a different foundation approach. It affects insurance and mortgageability too, so it is worth knowing early rather than at design stage.

Either way

Building regulations apply regardless of which of the four you are in, through Sussex Building Control, run jointly by Horsham District Council and Crawley Borough Council.