Have quite a wide opening 2m on 1st floor needs to comply with fire regs any suggestions have looked at fire curtains etc

Yes - there is! (and I presume that when you say 'back bedroom' you mean bedroom 3...). You have two options: Option 1- Make the new bedroom 5 slightly narrower than the existing bedroom three, include a 600mm wide window to the top left corner of bedroom three with a lean to roof over the study and utility room below. Option 2- Install a louver shutter over the added side window and accompany your application with a letter of justification as well as consent from your neighbours two houses down on the affected side. The consent has to be from the owner of the property so if the houses next to you are rental tenancies you will have to track down the title holders of the property. Another more extensive renovation option would be to add the bedroom next to bedroom 3, accessing it from behind the bathroom wall. This extension will of course also extend downwards and leave you with a walled roof top courtyard between bedroom two and the added bedroom 5, in the space directly outside the bathroom. All bedrooms will have windows facing away from the neighbours and can open onto the courtyard space but as mentioned this is a extensive renovation. Let me know if you need further assistance, I'll be more than happy to advise you further. You can contact me through our site - betterspace.co Good luck, Ed.

I think the building regs people will say that you are reducing the fire and smoke resistance of the building and reducing the safety of the escape route. If you choose to ask the building regs people I think they will say that it has to be a window with fire glass (unless you can find your preferred shutters with the 30 mins fire enclosure which in my humble opinion is unlikely)

The only way to do it is as Arc suggested, so that you have a means of escape in a fire. Of course you will still need a fire door on the kitchen too. It’s whether knocking the wall down & relocating the front door is worth it financially? How much space will you gain in the kitchen? You definitely cannot just remove the hallway. If the kitchen was on fire, how would you get out? Building regs won’t pass that off. Must be a protected means of escape. Presuming your house has fire doors being 3 storey, they usually give 30 mins of protection. So if your kitchen was on fire for example, the door closed, you would be able to escape in the way Arc has suggested.