Blackpool Roofing Company 247

Roofing in Blackpool: a local guide

The problem here is wind, not rain

Almost every roofing website in the country opens with something about our wet British weather. In Blackpool that is simply wrong, and anyone who lives here knows it. Met Office long-term averages for Blackpool Squires Gate put annual rainfall at about 886 mm against a UK average of roughly 1,163 mm, and annual sunshine at about 1,592 hours against a UK average of about 1,403. Blackpool is drier and sunnier than the country as a whole.

What it is not is calmer. Mean wind speed at the same station runs at about 10.7 knots against a UK average of about 9.3, and the Met Office records five to ten gale days a year on the North West coast compared with fewer than five at low-lying inland sites. The prevailing wind is south-westerly, straight off the Irish Sea onto a west-facing coast. The Met Office’s published gust record for a Fylde town is 79 knots — around 91 mph — measured at Fleetwood on 2 January 1976.

Roofs here fail by uplift, by corroded fixings and by blocked drainage, not by rainfall volume. That is why fixing specification matters more on this coast than it does at the inland sites the Met Office compares it with, and why we would rather talk to you about clips, nails and lead sizing than about how much it rains.

Slate, and what replaced it

Blackpool Council commissioned a set of historic townscape characterisation assessments and conservation area appraisals covering South Beach, Bloomfield, Foxhall, Layton, Central Promenade, North Promenade and the town centre. Read together they tell one consistent story: the original roof covering across the inner areas was Welsh slate, and the material that has replaced it is concrete tile. The council does not treat that as neutral. The Foxhall appraisal specifically describes properties re-roofed with heavier concrete tiles, and the Poulton-le-Fylde appraisal singles out modern slate substitutes that reflect more light than the originals and break up the look of a terrace.

Not everything here is slate, though, and it is worth knowing the difference before you order materials. The Raikes area, mostly built between 1900 and 1932, has blue slate and red tiles in widespread use side by side. Inter-war Layton has hipped roofs in red terracotta tile, on Accrington pressed red brick. Fleetwood, laid out by Decimus Burton in the 1830s and 40s, is mostly Welsh blue-grey slate in gabled forms but with red clay tile common too, and mansards with ornamental iron cresting on the grander buildings. Garstang, inland, was a thatched town within living memory of its own records — an 1840 survey counted 130 thatched roofs against 78 slated, and there is no thatch left in the town centre now.

When you need permission

Two rules catch people out locally. The first is that in a conservation area, replacing a roof covering needs planning permission — Blackpool has seven conservation areas, and the council asks you to speak to its Built Heritage and Conservation Team before you start. The second is the Raikes Hall Article 4 direction, in force since 1 June 2020, which withdraws permitted development rights for any alteration to a roof, for installing rooflights, for changing roofing materials and for chimney and flue work. It is the only Blackpool Article 4 direction that affects roofs; the borough-wide locally-listed one covers demolition and painting, and the Promenade one dates from 1949 and is about temporary structures on open land.

Separately from planning, Blackpool and Wyre building control both use the same wording: replacing a roof covering needs building regulations approval unless it is exactly a like-for-like repair. And if you are adding a dormer, the Extending Your Home guidance adopted jointly by Blackpool, Fylde and Wyre says it should not normally take up more than 35% of the roof plane, should have a pitched roof in matching tiles or slates, and should not be clad in board or plastic. We will tell you which of these apply to your job at the quote stage.