Jim
Sorry for rudeness in not replying - I drafted reply and lost it in
the ether, got sidetracked, and forgot....

Hi tony

Ah OK so Planning is required but I doubt they will be that interested
in the construction details as that is Building Control - who (at
least when I did mine last year) are not legally allowed to be
interested unless structure more than 30m2 as long as mainly
transparent etc (& other easily met conditions).

That sounds ok. Is that 30m3 volume, or 30m2 floor area?


Pic looks interesting - is said wall to the right?
Yes

does it slope away
from your side to "hold" next doors yard/extension up? Who built it?

No - It's perpendicular to the houe wall, built some 70 years ago,
supporting nothing.

is it on your land? - have the neighbours built on top of it/used it
as support for extension? did they have permission? any paperwork/
deeds for it?

No -none of the above.


I spose at end of day if you can't take that possibly retaining(?)
wall out and rebuild it *solidly* in a vertical fashion to all's
satisfaction, you will have to just make the best of it, leave it
alone and build right up against it?
Yes - it's 8" thick, so only 4" is on our land.



To me it seems unlikey you'd gain much space even if you did rebuild
it - as you could bet your neighbours would involve Bldg Ctrl who
would be interested and they'd probly make you build a replacement as
thick if not thicker!!


The big problem is, I think that the sloping roof is quite high - It
needs to be to look right, to have the same slope as the adjacant
kitchen roof. It will seriously loom down on next door's patio area,
and if I was them I certainly wouldn't like it, so I won't blame them
if they object. There isn't really a good way of lowering it. I
could put a slope towards one side, so looking down on it, it'd be a
rectangle with a diagonal line '\' from the top middle to the bottom
corner, but that wouldn't help much.

Anyway I'll put in the plans and take it from there. I have other jobs
on the go, so don't expect to start until January, and even then only
if the weather is nice!

I might also look into the possibility of wood which would allow more
flexibility in shapes and sizes and changes on the fly.

Thanks for the tips, and especially the clarification on the role of
Building Control.

cheers
Tony