I used the knowledge of this forum to help me work out what i wanted to build. I was told repeatedly to knock down and re-build, and i kinda wish i'd of gone down that route now, but i decided to stick with what i had and make it work. With that said, i'm not paying much VAT, i'm doing a lot of the work myself, and the trades i do employ aren't VAT registered anyway. The 0% VAT incentive of going new build wouldn't have been quite as much as a game changer as i thought it might be.
I had a bit of back and forth with the planners over 2 things, the height of the building, and the positioning of the rooflights.
We managed to settle on raising the eaves approx 1m to give way more usable space upstairs, and a ridge height equal to the neighbours.
The rooflights had to be positioned at 1.7m above floor as to not overlook the neighbours, but i wanted to use the rooflight in the 3rd bedroom as a fire escape. In the end we managed to work in a dormer to that room, and position normal windows facing front and back at 1.1m for fire escape. (although, i think this is going to be quite difficult to work into the roof in practice, so idea's here would be welcome!)
In the end, after 3 months, we've ended up with approval.
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