Builder in Hastings

Homes in Hastings

The oldest homes are in the Old Town, in the valley of the Bourne stream between the East Hill and the West Hill. Surveys by David and Barbara Martin found at least 35 properties there with fabric from before about 1500, mostly along High Street and All Saints Street, and almost all the surviving 17th century houses are timber framed. From the 18th century brick took over, often with weatherboarding or tile hanging, and timber frames carried on behind more fashionable cladding. The resort era then added Wellington Square, begun just before 1820, and Pelham Crescent, built between 1824 and 1828.

St Leonards began in 1828 as a separate resort laid out by the London builder James Burton, with seafront terraces and villas in landscaped grounds, and his son Decimus and his brothers kept building there until about 1860. Painted stucco under Welsh slate roofs was almost universal until late in the 19th century, when brick and clay tiles took over. Later streets climbed the hills: stuccoed terraces of the late 1870s around Gensing Gardens, pairs and terraces mainly of the 1880s on Kenilworth, Stockleigh, Carisbrooke and Rothsay Roads, and red brick houses on the western part of Pevensey Road, built between the 1890s and 1914.

By 1900 closely built semi detached and terraced houses had spread to Bulverhythe, Bohemia, Silverhill and Hollington, with roomier villas around Hollington Park, while modest terraces and semis reached out towards Ore and Clive Vale. Since 1945 new housing has filled gaps in those suburbs and covered former countryside west of Hollington, at Little Ridge and around Fern Road. Many large 19th century houses, particularly in St Leonards, have been subdivided, and at the 2021 Census 13.7 per cent of households lived in a flat or bedsit in a converted or shared house, almost four times the English figure. About 36 per cent of the borough's homes date from before 1900, compared with 15 per cent across England.

Extensions and Loft Conversions on Sloping Sites

Many Victorian and Edwardian terraces and semis have room to grow at the back or in the roof. A single storey rear or side return extension can open up a narrow back kitchen, and a loft conversion with a dormer or roof lights can add a bedroom and en suite. In conservation areas the draft Local Plan expects dormers to be modest and set down from the ridge.

On the town's hills, foundations may need to step down a slope, a retaining wall can become part of the structure and tight access may mean moving materials by hand. The same draft plan asks householders to take a chartered structural engineer's advice early where land stability could be an issue.

Planning, Conservation Areas and Article 4 Directions

Hastings Borough Council decides planning applications in Hastings and St Leonards, and Rother District Council those in the surrounding villages. The borough has no parish or town councils and no adopted neighbourhood plan, though a West St Leonards Neighbourhood Forum was designated in February 2024 to prepare one. Decisions rest on the Hastings Planning Strategy (2014) and Development Management Plan (2015), and a new Local Plan to 2041 reached its pre submission consultation in October 2026.

There are 18 conservation areas, among them Old Town, Hastings Town Centre, Burtons' St Leonards, Warrior Square and Eversfield Place. On some homes in them, Article 4 directions from 1952 and 1993 mean an extension, porch, boundary fence, new front or roof materials, or even repainting the front can need permission; the council's street index lists the properties affected. Since July 2012, turning any house in the town into a shared house for three to six unrelated people has also needed permission.

In St Leonards, two cliff stability directions confirmed in July 2025 remove most householder permitted development rights from homes near the cliffs around West Hill Road, Grosvenor Crescent and Marina. The High Weald National Landscape takes in the East Hill, Hastings Country Park and parts of the borough's northern edge. In a conservation area or National Landscape, side extensions, rear extensions of more than one storey, roof enlargements and cladding fall outside householder permitted development, so check with the council early; we offer planning support alongside your architect.