"Josie Milton" wrote
| Does he mean producing plans for a Building Regs application,
| or actually making the application?
| Both I assume.

That's pretty bad. However pretty a design he comes up with, it's worthless
if it's either unbuildable or non-compliant.

| If he hasn't, he hasn't done his job, and you should consider
| finding yourself an architect who's prepared to do some real work.
| Yep great if I lived in a big city, but in the sticks you only the
| choice of 1.

That's only pretend sticks.
In the real sticks you have a choice of 0 :-)

| For a barn conversion you are going to have to produce full plans
| and specification, not just for BC but for the contractors to
| quote and work from.
| No quotes required. Doing it myself.

It's either a case of trawling further afield for an architect who will do
the work, or learning to do the building design yourself. Especially as you
are working within an existing building (old? crumbling?
conservation/listed?) you will probably have some bespoke structural
calculations which will need to be signed off by a structural engineer.

Once the load-bearing is structure designed, the rest may fall into place.
It's a case of, wherever possible, using standard methods from the Approved
Documents, then going through the Regs on a room-by-room
paragraph-by-paragraph checking for compliance. It's easy to forget things
like doors opening too close to stairs, or window requirements for floor
area. It's even been known for people to forget the stairs altogether.

Building Control may be able to suggest architects or architectural
technicians with experience of similar projects, or even let you see plans
for projects which have been approved. This will give you an idea of what
they require. You should, for example, be expected to show by calculation
that your gutters and downpipes will be adequate to drain the roof, and the
rainfall to be coped with depends on your location and possibly also roof
orientation. It's perfectly possible to do all this yourself, but a good
relationship with the BCO is essential, and it's preferable to find and
resolve any ambiguities on the plan rather than after they've been plastered
over.

Owain