Frodsham's conservation area has a published appraisal, and unusually it says in plain terms what the roofs of the town are supposed to look like. That is worth knowing before you price anything.
Most cost guides open with a list of variables. Frodsham deserves a different starting point, because it has something most towns do not: a published conservation area appraisal that states what the roofs are supposed to look like.
If your property is inside the boundary, that document affects the largest single cost decision on the job — the covering — before any of the usual variables come into it.
Frodsham's conservation area was originally designated in 1973 and extended in 1977, with an appraisal adopted in 2006. Unlike a bare designation, an appraisal is a document you can read: it defines the boundary and describes what the area's special character is taken to consist of.
On roofs it is specific. The appraisal records that blue and grey Welsh slate roofs predominate, at varying but not very steep pitches, with some thatch and plain terracotta tile.
That phrase in the appraisal is doing more work than it looks.
Slate tolerates lower pitches than most tiles do. So a roof that works perfectly well in slate may sit below the minimum pitch for the tile someone wants to put on it — and every tile carries a manufacturer's minimum below which it is not warranted, because below that angle wind-driven rain gets pushed back up under the lap faster than the tile can shed it.
On a shallow Frodsham roof, that can rule out plain tiles entirely and narrow the choice to slate or specific low-pitch interlocking ranges.
Headlap is the amount by which each unit overlaps the one two courses below. The lower the pitch, the greater the lap has to be — and a greater lap means more units per square metre, because each one covers less exposed area.
That is a genuine cost, and it is also somewhere a quotation can be quietly made cheaper. A quotation that has reduced the headlap to lower the slate count is cheaper for a reason you would not accept if it were spelled out. Ask what headlap it is based on.
It does not make every roofing job a planning matter, and this is widely misunderstood.
Renewing a slate roof in slate does not materially affect the external appearance of the building, so under the planning legislation it is not development at all — no permission required, conservation area or otherwise.
What designation affects is a visible change of covering, where the test is applied a good deal more tightly than it would be elsewhere. That is the case worth raising with the council before ordering anything.
One point of accuracy: the 2006 appraisal recommended that an Article 4 direction be considered for the area. A recommendation in an appraisal is not a direction that has been made, and we are not going to tell you there is one when we cannot confirm it. The council can.
None of the heritage discussion applies, and the covering is your choice on ordinary grounds — budget, appearance, and how long you intend to stay. The pitch and weight constraints still apply, because those are physics rather than planning.
Two separate systems. Planning: a like-for-like re-roof does not materially affect the external appearance of a building, so under section 55 of the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 it is not development at all and needs no permission. A visible change of covering can be a different matter, particularly inside a conservation area, where the test is applied more tightly.
Building regulations: where more than 50% of the roof's surface area is renewed, or the work forms part of a major renovation, regulation 23 of the Building Regulations 2010 requires the roof to be brought up to current thermal standards so far as that is technically, functionally and economically feasible — 0.16 W/(m²K) for a roof in an existing dwelling. A patch repair does not trigger it, and neither does a roof over unheated space such as a detached garage.
We will establish where you stand on the heritage side and quote on that basis, not the other way round.
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