Roofers in Milland

Milland Old Church, also called Tuxlith Chapel, is a small chapel thought to date from the Norman period. It is a Grade II listed building, first listed on 18 June 1959. That sentence tells a roofer more than it first appears to, because a listing sets the terms for everything that follows: who may approve the work, what materials are acceptable and how much of the old fabric has to stay. We make no assumption about what the roof of any Milland building is made of. We climb up, photograph it, and read the list entry before we say a word about repair or replacement, because the entry and the roof together decide what a fair repair looks like.

1.1 Reading a list entry before a quote

A list entry is the official record of a protected building. Milland Old Church is entry 1216948 and the Church of St Luke is entry 1271477 on the National Heritage List for England. An entry describes the building, gives the reasons for listing and sometimes names the walling and roofing materials. It is the first thing we read, because a repair that matches what the entry describes is far easier to agree than one that departs from it. The same habit applies to any older Milland house: ask whether it appears on the list, and have the entry to hand when we survey. The 1990 Act bars any alteration that would alter what makes a listed building special, unless consent has been given, and that is the test the council applies.

1.2 Who consents to a church roof

The two churches follow different routes. St Luke's is the Church of England parish church, and while it is used for worship its approval comes from the Church itself, through a faculty, not from the council's listed building process, though planning law remains a separate hurdle for anything that alters the outside. Milland Old Church passed into the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches in 1974. A church out of regular worship comes under the ordinary listed building rules, so roof work that affects its character needs listed building consent. If something in the churchyard is a scheduled monument, scheduled monument consent is a separate approval, granted by the Secretary of State. In every case the person commissioning the work is the parish, trust or owner, and our part is the survey, the photographs and a written specification.

Milland sits inside the South Downs National Park, and that decides where paperwork goes. Chichester District Council receives Milland's planning applications and decides them for the National Park Authority; it also keeps building control. Chichester District Council can confirm whether a house sits in a conservation area or under an Article 4 direction, so for any listed or older building the safe first call is to its planning team.

3.1 Roof windows, Part L and weight

Fitting a roof window raises a planning question and a Building Regulations question. For planning, read our guide to skylight planning permission, which explains why National Park land is treated more strictly. For the Building Regulations side, Approved Document L (2021, Table 4.2) lets a roof window meet either 1.4 W/m²K or the Band B energy rating, while a rooflight is held to 2.2 W/m²K; the 2026 edition's Table 3.2 carries the same values from 24 March 2027.

Swapping a light covering for a heavy one changes the load on the timbers. The Planning Portal puts the line at a covering 15 per cent heavier or more, and suggests an engineer's or a surveyor's opinion ahead of the work. A re-roof touching less than 25 per cent of the total building envelope and less than 50 per cent of the roof usually needs no building control application, and our survey says which side of that line you are on.

3.2 Scaffold licences in West Sussex

Milland is in West Sussex, so a scaffold on the road is licensed by West Sussex County Council as highway authority. Its page asks for at least 10 working days from application through to erection, and gives £266 for a month of scaffolding on the highway, a figure that is worth allowing for. That lead time goes into our programme from the first day. Checkatrade's scaffolding guide, updated in February 2026, puts a month's hire for a two-storey semi at around £875, and for a detached bungalow at £1,000, which is why access is worth discussing before a quote and not after it.

3.3 After a gale

If wind or a fallen branch damages a roof, make it safe, tell your insurer first, take photographs of what has been damaged and keep every receipt for temporary repairs. Which? and the Institution of Structural Engineers both give that advice. When a roof is leaking after a storm we get to it ahead of routine work and make it safe first. A fault caused by age, not a storm, may fall outside a policy, so ask the insurer before assuming.