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@temp thank you for your help. Unfortunately there is no existing ground floor room. The area on the floor plan is currently a courtyard/garden which we are looking to turn into internal space. I’m just baffled why the council need this 200mm recess, especially since there is a wall there already. I’ve put your suggestion about differentiating the extension to my architect so hopefully i'll hear some good news. Thanks for your help. @Mr Punter Actually I’m quite happy to hear any suggestions about changing the internal space. Just to answer your points (using the same numbering) as below:- 1. We initially wanted to do this but because the room has a double height ceiling and the corridor has a slope running down, making it a single height (because of our neighbour’s stairs), it doesn’t look right at all, hence we decided to keep the wall partition. 2. I like your idea of reducing the bathroom space but I’m having trouble visualising it. Because of our situation we knew we needed two bathrooms downstairs and one upstairs (the vault space is too small to have a second bathroom). The only reason we made the upstairs bathroom bigger is to be able to fit a bathtub (we personally don’t want a bathtub downstairs and our elderly parents would have a hard time getting in and out of one). 3. Our structural engineer says that this is necessary in these types of buildings if we plan on removing the wall. Thanks for your help and tips!

Thank you Ferdinand for your help. Your suggestion of oriel bay windows is a good idea which I hadn’t considered before but I get the feeling that the council may reject it. No our property is definitely not a basement flat. The rear of the lower ground floor is at street level but the front of the property is not. The front of our property has two vaults and a courtyard area where the previous owners (who had lived there for some 30 years) kept their bins and a kayak! There is plenty of empty resident parking on our road and the council do not seem to mind that we are converting the garage into living space. They aren’t questioning any changes apart from the 200mm set back. I’ll look into the appearance issue, which is a great point. Thanks again for your help, it’s greatly appreciated. Best wishes S

I've attached an image (hope it's big enough) of the existing and proposed plans. Thank you for your help.

This is exactly what the council have said: "The proposed extension should be set back from the existing closet wing in order to remain subservient to the existing rear closet wing. It should be set back to allow there to be a clear difference in the original closet wing and the proposed extension, this should be at least 0.2m." and then provided two similar examples of recent permissions.

Hi all I was wondering if any one could help me with an planning issue I've been having. We purchased a lower ground/ground floor terraced flat in Westminster and we are planning to build a double height extension. The extension is over our garden area which backs out onto a road/car park. There are a number of other properties on our road that have completed similar extensions, most recently in 2017. There haven't been any objections to the extension itself but the council have said that it needs to be reduced by 200mm from our boundary line. This is in spite of the fact that there is an existing brick wall and door already in place at our boundary line. The council have said that there have been a couple of recent permissions on our road that have accepted this reduction but surely this does not mean that it is a precedent? We've asked the council to come and view the property for themselves but they have refused. I would appreciate it if you have any thoughts or recommendations you can give to us. Our architects seem less than enthused to help us and they actually changed the plans to reduce the extension without telling us (I found out by looking at new drawings on the planning website myself). Many thanks S