Single storey rear extension - seeing planners

longwalks1

Our 4 bed semi has already been extended full width across the rear of the house (goes out 3.8m - as do a lot of the other houses in our street, it seems a common extension in our road). Id like to extend out again, single storey, full width by another 3.2m.

Before I get proper plans drawn up at a fair cost, I'm planning on seeing my local planning dept with my ideas so they can give me an idea of if it will be a yes or no before I spend £,000's on an architect, is this normal?

And I was going to take existing house/extension plans with me, along with photos of the back of the house, side and rear garden and also some basic drawings (i worked in a drawing office many years ago, so my works a little better than a scribble on the back of an envelope) to give them an idea, would this be enough?

Any advice or feedback will be greatly received

Also, the rear garden is lower than the floor of the house, so the rule of no extension having eaves higher than 3m if close to the boundary, where would this height be measured from?

Hoploz

At the moment there are increases to the limits on Permitted Development, meaning that as long as you get neighbour approval it's possible to build out 6m from the back wall of the original house without the need for planning permission.

Otherwise yes apply for planning permission and go through that way.

Details can be found here
https://www.planningportal.co.uk/info/200125/do_you_need_permission

It is certainly worth having a chat with the duty planning officer about it and running some ideas by them. I did this in 2008 when I extended my last house. I tried the same this year for the new house, only to find they no longer have these conversations - I've had to send in plans to make a formal application for pre-application advice, which I had to pay for, and then when I'd still had no reply after 7 weeks I had to chase for a response. So good luck, I hope your council haven't made similar cuts!

mishkanorman

ASAIK you cant use permitted development to extend onto an extension, definitely worth giving your local planning office a call or see if there is a drop in clinic you can attend, if they cant help they should be the best ones to tell you

System

A lot of planning offices now don't do this as a service, they will likely ask you formalise it in a pre-app and provide some rough drawings etc, if you go in and receive verbal advice be sure to email them with a summary of your conversation and ask them to confirm that was their advice.
I have fallen foul in a few local authorities of the planner who doesn't want to tell you any bad news in person, only to later have an entirely contrary view when it comes to the formalities.