"NotMe" wrote
| I expect to get the approval for my planning application (well,
| building warrant)

It's important you get the right one.

| I am in the top floor of a Victorian tenement building, and the
| wall to be knocked down IS NOT a supporting wall (all the plans
| were drawn by my architect and structural engineer), and the wall
| in which the doorway is to be made is, again, not a supporting wall. ...
| Is that a good idea in general? Anything to be concerned about? I
| forgot to mention that my structural engineer has specified exactly
| how he expects the building work to be carried out (which order,
| and which supports to have in place prior to starting, etc), and
| we intend to follow them.

That all sounds much more sensible that what most builders would do (which
is to suck their teeth, quote an extortionate rate, and reach for the
hammer).

Run a pipe/cable detector across the walls before starting. A property of
that age may well have pipes for gas lighting in the walls, and there's a
chance they could still be live.

| PS: all the walls + ceilings in and around the areas affected by
| the work are going to be plastered as soon as the work is complete.

It might be a good idea to check with your StructE and building control
whether they want sight of the completed works *before* plastering over.

Especially if it's brick wall that is being demolished, how are you getting
the rubble out? You can hire linked 'bottomless buckets' to make a tube from
upstairs window down to a skip on the ground, easier than carrying waste
down the stairs.

Owain