EVERY homeowner would rather do away with the bureaucratic planning laws that govern extensions and loft conversions – as long as it’s us who’s doing the extending and not our neighbours. The Government’s new White Paper on planning, announced on Monday, tries to please everyone by promising to relax the rules while paying more attention to neighbourly concerns. Homeowners may, from April next year, if the White Paper becomes law, happily build an extension, porch or conservatory, or erect a wind turbine on the roof, without applying for planning permission – a process that now costs about £1,000 per application and takes a minimum of eight weeks.

The benefits of this loosening of the law will be felt strongly by those househunters looking to buy, restore and extend a rundown property, such as 130 Divinity Road, pictured above and below, a four-bedroom Edwardian house off Oxford’s trendy Cowley Road. The house is, as the agents say, “in need of complete modernisation”, and is for sale through Hamptons for only £395,000, a steal in Oxford’s overheated market, where the most expensive family houses are now selling for up to £4 million. According to Kate Read of Hamptons, “the property has been untouched since the 1920s, though it is structurally sound and full of original period features. It even has an original coalhole out the back full of coal.”

Read estimates that a complete revamp could increase the value of the house “to the high £400,000s”. This would entail spending about £75,000 on installing central heating, a lavatory under the stairs and complete internal redecoration, as well as more ambitious improvements, which would previously have required planning applications.

A modern, fitted kitchen adds the most value to a property, according to a Nationwide survey, so extending the tiny kitchen at Divinity Road into the garden would be money well spent, as would converting the loft into an en suite master bedroom, at a cost of £17,500, which could add 21 per cent to the house’s value. Under the new rules, semidetached houses may be extended sideways by 50 per cent, or to the rear by 4m, without planning permission. Extended rear loft conversions may be of any size as long as they start a minimum of 1m from the edge. You can even stick a huge wind turbine on your roof without seeking permission, no matter what the neighbours say. www.communities.gov.uk

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