House Extensions in Fareham: A Local 2026 Guide
Fareham sits in that useful spot between Portsmouth and Southampton, and it shows in who settles here: families after the schools, the M27 and a bit more garden than either city offers. The pattern we see over and over is people who like their street but have run out of house. Once you add up stamp duty, agent fees and the general misery of moving, extending usually wins, and Fareham's plots tend to leave enough room to do it properly.
We're Complete Builds, a Dorset-based construction firm working right across Hampshire, and extensions make up a good chunk of our general construction work. Here's what a Fareham extension really costs in 2026, where the planning side gets fiddly locally, and how long you'll have us in your garden.
Why Fareham homes extend so well
The 1930s semis around Highlands Road and Fareham Park sit on generous plots by modern standards. Most have room for a full-width rear extension without crowding the boundary, and the gardens are long enough that you keep proper outdoor space afterwards. The post-war homes in Stubbington and Portchester are much the same story.
One local quirk worth knowing about: brick. Fareham used to produce the famous Fareham Reds, the bricks that face the Royal Albert Hall, and plenty of older properties in the borough wear them. An extension in the wrong brick sticks out for the life of the building, so we sort matched or reclaimed brick before a single course goes down, not once the walls are half up.
What an extension costs in Fareham in 2026
We price from a survey, not a phone call, but here's where the numbers sit at south-coast rates as of September 2026:
Single-storey rear extension, standard specification: £2,300 to £3,100 per square metre, taken through to plastered, decorated and ready to use.
A typical 20 square metre kitchen-diner extension: £45,000 to £62,000 for the build itself.
Two-storey extensions: £2,400 to £3,350 per square metre. Better value per room, since one set of foundations and one roof serve two floors.
What moves the figure most isn't the brickwork. It's glazing (bifolds and rooflights add up fast), drainage (relocating a manhole is a proper job, not an afternoon), the steels needed to open up the back of the house, and the kitchen you put in at the end. Professional fees for the architect, structural engineer and building control sit on top of build costs, as does VAT, so budget for those separately. And if a quote you're holding comes in well under these ranges, it's worth asking what's been left out of it.
Planning permission: where Fareham gets fiddly
Plenty of single-storey rear extensions in Fareham don't need planning permission at all. Permitted development covers up to 4 metres deep on a detached house and 3 metres on a semi, and the larger home extension rules can take that to 8 and 6 metres with prior approval from Fareham Borough Council. Building regulations apply every time regardless; there's no exemption for small jobs.
The fiddly bits are local. Titchfield village, the Georgian stretch of Fareham High Street and Wallington are conservation areas, where permitted development rights shrink and the council looks hard at materials and rooflines. The trick is designing for approval from the start rather than negotiating after a refusal. Where a full householder application is needed, expect a decision in roughly 8 weeks.
How long you'll have builders in the garden
A straightforward single-storey extension takes 10 to 14 weeks on site. Groundworks and foundations fill the first three weeks or so, the shell goes up and gets weathertight by around week seven, then it's first fix, plaster, second fix and decoration. Two-storey jobs run more like 14 to 20 weeks.
Timing matters more than people think. Start groundworks this autumn and you're weathertight before the worst of the winter, finished in time for spring. Leave the design work until January and you'll be queuing behind everyone else who had the same idea.
Ready to look at your extension?
Every Fareham extension we take on starts the same way: we come out, measure up, talk through what you actually want the space to do, and give you a fixed written quote. No obligation, and you'll know your real number before committing to anything. Book a free survey and we'll take it from there.
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