A roof records the age of a house and the care it has had. In Worthing that spans a long stretch of history: terraces and villas from the Victorian and Edwardian town along the seafront, inter-war semis around Goring and Durrington, post-war bungalows, flint-and-brick cottages in the villages under the Downs, and modern estates and blocks of flats with wide flat roofs. All of them take the same weather off the Channel, yet they do not share the same weak points.
That is why a leak on a terrace and a leak on a bungalow are rarely solved the same way. The covering, the joints, the chimneys, the lead and any extensions all change where water gets in. Some of these buildings also stand in conservation areas, where the rules on roof work differ from those on a 1960s estate.
This guide takes the main kinds of house in Worthing, Adur and the Downs villages one at a time: what their roofs are made of, what tends to need attention, and which planning points apply. It describes what you find on the ground, not how many of each there are, because every street has its exceptions. To have your own roof looked at, start from our home page.
Seafront terraces and villas: slate, stacks and lead
The older streets by the sea were laid out in Victorian and Edwardian times, and the houses carry the details of that period: Welsh slate laid in tidy courses, tall brick stacks, decorative ridge tiles and lead along every joint. Plenty of roofs there have been recovered since, so treat the original details as the pattern to look for, not a promise about any one house.
Natural slate, laid well, can outlast several owners. MyBuilder (updated 21/08/2026) gives 80 to 100 years or more. So the slate is seldom what fails first. The trouble gathers around it: rusted fixings let single slates slip, and lead wears out in the valleys and beside the stacks. Water from two slopes runs together down a valley, and on a terrace one may link the main roof to a rear projection, taking water from both sides at once.
Stacks that two households share
Terrace stacks often straddle the party wall, so the flashing, the lead folded across the joint between slope and brickwork, and the flaunching, the collar of mortar that holds the pots, concern both sides. Leadworx lists code 4 as the everyday thickness for flashings and keeps code 3 for soakers, the little lead folds that sit beneath slates where the roof meets a wall.
Anyone planning to remove a chimney breast needs Building Regulations approval first. A stack on a party wall brings in the neighbour as well, who has to be told in good time, from two months up to a year before the stack comes down. Where a decorative ridge is refixed, BS 5534 practice since its 2014 revision is to stop relying on mortar by itself, so every tile gets a mechanical fixing too. That suits a roof facing sea gales. Our pages on slate roofing and chimney repairs describe the work.
Inter-war semis and post-war bungalows: tiles, hips and bay roofs
The 1930s semis of Goring and Durrington are found under clay and concrete tiles, with a bay roof over the front window and lead where it meets the main slope. A bay roof is a miniature roof in itself, packing several joints into a tiny area, and it is a frequent place for a ceiling stain to begin. Marley quotes Building Research Establishment testing that gives clay tiles a life of at least 60 years and expects concrete tiles to last around 60 years, while MyBuilder puts the point at which concrete tiles typically need replacing at 30 to 50 years. Exposure of the slope and quality of the fixing settle where a given roof falls.
Post-war bungalows are the other group worth knowing. The usual form is a hipped roof, which slopes down on all four sides and has no gable wall. The hip is the sloping outer corner where two slopes meet, finished with hip tiles, so a hipped bungalow carries more capped line than a plain gable roof on the same plan. Those capping tiles take the first knock in a gale.
A loft room in a bungalow
A bungalow roof is low enough to inspect from a ladder, yet a loft room in one needs the same care as in any house. Approved Document B ties its escape rules to the height of the upper floor above the ground, and an escape window must open to at least 0.33 square metres with neither side under 450mm. Your building control body confirms which route fits your layout.
If a hipped roof leaks at the ridge or a hip, the ridge tile repairs page explains how a dry-fixed ridge goes together.
Flint, brick and the Downs villages
Away from the seafront the buildings change character. The council's conservation appraisal for Sompting calls flint the most characteristic local material, gathered from the chalk of the Downs and from the beaches, and says the flint walls unify the village. Kingston Buci's appraisal describes flint used extensively in houses and boundary walls, as cobbles or field flints, with knapped and coursed work on grander buildings. Henfield's appraisal adds knapped flint set against red brick dressings. Flint is irregular, so lead set against such a wall has to be cut to the stones, not laid to a neat mortar line.
The roofs over these walls vary. For Old Shoreham the council's appraisal names tile and thatch as the common coverings, and records slate and Horsham slab among the exceptions. For Henfield it puts peg tile first, Horsham stone slate second and thatch third. Steyning's appraisal says its older buildings wear Horsham slab or clay peg, frequently on hipped roofs, and that slab roofs remain there in large numbers.
Horsham stone: repair what you have
Horsham stone is split into slabs of mixed size, the biggest low on the roof and the smallest near the top. The Stone Roofing Association starts from keeping the roof's own slabs wherever possible. New supply is short, a shortage that a building conservation charity called a crisis of supply in 2019, so reclaimed stone from other buildings turns up often, but the Association advises avoiding it where it can be helped. Steyning's appraisal calls relaying slabs with mortar joints an inappropriate repair. Our Horsham stone roofing page covers the work, and the Steyning page covers the village.
Estates, flats and the wide flat roofs
Newer estates and seafront blocks of flats bring a different problem. Their roofs are bigger and flatter, with fewer joints per square metre but far less margin when water stands on them. MyBuilder gives flat roofs 15 to 30 years in general. By material, GreenSpec expects EPDM, a synthetic rubber sheet, to serve for 20 to 30 years, Less gives GRP (fibreglass) 25 to 40 years, and Less allows torch-on felt 10 to 20, adding that a badly laid one may not reach 10.
Drainage is what keeps these roofs alive. IKO, citing the 2018 edition of BS 6229 (since revised), says to design a flat roof to a 1:40 fall, which leaves 1:80 as the finished minimum after building tolerances and sag. Where the fall is missing, puddles sit on the membrane, and the first leak tends to open under one. Our flat roofing page explains the materials in more detail.
Thermal upgrades and who is responsible
In Part L terms, a new waterproof layer laid across a flat roof counts as renovating it, and where more than 50 per cent of the roof surface is renovated, the whole element has to meet the insulation standard. A flat-roofed extension on a bungalow falls under the same test, so the survey should say whether new insulation is part of the work.
Flats raise one more question: who arranges the work. If you own a flat, ask your management company or freeholder before you call anyone. Tenants should know that the Landlord and Tenant Act 1985 puts repair of the structure and exterior on the landlord for leases shorter than seven years, and that Adur & Worthing Councils can inspect a home if a written report goes unanswered.
Conservation areas, listed houses and the Article 4 streets
Worthing has 27 designated conservation areas, including Marine Gardens, newly designated after the 2024 review. On the Adur side there are seven, running from Southwick, Southlands and Sompting through Shoreham-by-Sea and Old Shoreham to North Lancing and Kingston Buci. For planning purposes the land at Castle Goring and Highdown counts as National Park, so the South Downs National Park Authority is the planning authority there. A conservation area does not mean every re-roof needs a planning application. A like-for-like recovering is generally outside the definition of development, and the real question is whether an Article 4 direction removes rights on your street.
Five directions on the councils' list remove roof-related rights. In Old Shoreham and Kingston Buci each direction withdraws Class C and the rights for other roof work, covering changes and rooflights among them, for any house whose front or side meets a road or a right of way, and it also withdraws chimney or flue alterations anywhere on the plot. Warwick Gardens in Worthing withdraws the right to alter the form or the material of a roof slope on houses that look onto a road or open space, and chimney work is included. Warwick Place withdraws Class C for homes facing that street. Western Row is recorded as withdrawing the dwellinghouse rights across the board.
Listed houses
Listed buildings follow stricter rules. Work that affects the special character of the house needs listed building consent, and the Adur & Worthing guide cites repairs done in a different material as one trigger. The South Downs National Park Authority says everyday maintenance and minor in situ repairs in the same material need no consent, while complete replacement of historic fabric will. Ask the council's conservation team before the scaffold goes up. Our roof regulations guide goes through each rule in turn.
What the coast asks of every roof, and what to expect at the survey
Whatever the house, Channel weather decides how a roof is fixed. Marley points out that below a 30 degree pitch the windward slope can be pulled upward by suction, one reason low bungalow roofs need careful fixing. Wienerberger asks for at least one mechanical fixing per tile on a single-lap roof, with the exact method set by a specification written for the address, which weighs where it stands, its altitude and its wind exposure. Near Shoreham airport the manufacturer's specification can call for special advice, since Marley asks to be consulted on any site within 6km of an airport.
Salt is the other constant. HomeBuilding warns that in marine air the soffit and fascia boards gather salty deposits that rain never reaches to wash away. MyBuilder puts the working life of uPVC fascias and soffits at 10 to 20 years, so a house near the sea benefits from a regular look at its roofline. The same applies to zinc sheet on a dormer or extension, which its maker says should be rinsed with fresh water every six months or so.
What a good survey tells you about your house
On any of these houses, the survey should follow the water to where it enters, give you photos of what was found up there, and end in a written quote that names one total price. Access, covering, roof size and whatever the inspection turns up all move that figure. A terrace with a narrow rear passage, a hipped bungalow and a villa with a tall stack will each price differently. Our roofing costs guide gives typical UK ranges for the work, and the guide to spotting a dodgy roofer is worth reading before any quote arrives, so you know what a straight answer sounds like.
