Advice on double storey extension

tamdob

We have recently had planning permission granted for a single storey extension. We live in a 3 bed 1930s Semi Detached house in the borough of Bromley and the plans have been granted for a single storey extension that will go to the boundary at the front where we will build a garage and then 70cm in from the boundary behind the garage to the back of the house for an extension to our kitchen.

We are now considering changing our plans to build a second storey above the garage. I realise that you cannot build to the boundary when building two storeys so we had thought we would build our garage to the boundary as originally planned and then build the second story only 1m in from the boundary. We would be using this space to make our 3rd box bedroom bigger so the fact that the second storey extension would be narrow would not be a concern to us.

The person that has been doing our drawings has said that if we build 2 storeys both of these have to be 1m in from the boundary. This would give us a garage with a width of 1.6m! I was hoping to find out if anyone could give me advice on whether this was definitely the case and if there is any way round this? We can't see why it is OK to build to the boundary on the ground floor when you are only building 1 storey but not when you are building 2 storeys if you are making sure there is a gap on the second storey?

Any advice on this would be much appreciated.I would also be very interested to find out if there is ever any movement on the 1m from boundary rule - would it be worth applying for planning permission with a 70cm gap for both storeys?

Many thanks

planning_officer

This is impossible to answer unfortunately, as it depends on the policies set out by your local Council (LB of Bromley). There are no national 'rules' on distances to boundaries when it comes to assessing planning applications.

I can only help by providing advice as to how my Council would look at such a proposal, but it will vary according to district/borough, as we all have different Local Plans and Local Development Frameworks. At my Council, the 1m 'rule' is a policy in our Local Plan and only applies at first floor level, not at ground floor level. We would look at every proposal individually and in areas which are characterised by spacious layouts, we would look for much more than a 1m gap. In areas where houses are much closer and other houses extend to the boundary, then it would be less of a problem to extend at first floor level to the boundary, but such instances are rare.

You probably need to seek advice from your local planning department as to how they would view such a proposal - they may charge for this, but it would be less than a planning application and at least you could get an idea before formally applying, and make any adjustments as necessary.