Thank you Carolina and Minnie. I'm still surprised people are so helpful on these forums- really grateful for everyone's advice! I'm no expert at design for sure - if it's xray guided surgery no problems haha. Carolina I'm glad you think the steps can look OK. I'm beginning to think maybe it might not look so odd. The kitchen design is just whatever the architect put together himself for the plans, but I'm yet to consider how to actually lay it out. Any advice? The idea for the 'utility' is that there will be long closet / cupboards from wall to ceiling with the washer and dryer hidden by those. I know it's called utility but in reality itll just be an extension to the massive hallway in order to get access to the kitchen and downstairs loo. Storing the washer and dryer there was a thought to utilise the remainder of that space. The reason it has to have a door is because the architect says new fire safety rules stipulate there has to be a fire door to a kitchen to prevent fire from spreading to the main house. Otherwise I would have just not kept that door at all and kept a big hallway. Although the hall is disproportionate, with the high ceilings, it is what we really liked about the property and gave a really nice airy feeling to the place. Minnie thank you for that link. What a stunning conservatory they've built. With regards to having one set of steps- I was thinking the same at one point - that maybe I could just keep one set of steps from the 'utility' down - and swap the kitchen and dining space. The only thing that I don't like about that idea is that I wanted there to be a free flow of space to go from the living room down into the extension too. But I guess you can't have everything in life and maybe having a bannister like they have in the link you've sent, would allow for that airy feeling and continuity of light. Should people need to go from the living room down into the kitchen they'd have to go through the 'utility'....

hi, I think that you probably need to think about the internal layout and whether the money spent in creating the space will benefit the way you want to live. the side extension will probably restrict access to the garden. in addition many Locla Authorities are against the terracing that is created by side extensions, so may not welcome the application to extend. in terms of costs depending on your drainage layout, side extensions have more issues with moving drainage and the added issues of party wall matters, which add to the costs of the extension. if your garden is not compromised then it may be better to build on the rear of the house. costs for demolishing the garage will be insignificant and you will have a clearer view of the garden. looking at the side access, I doubt a modern car will fit down the space to the garage, so a shed,/ workshop can be added somewhere less important than where you will look out at from the house. check what can be done o permitted development which you can find on the government planning portal. it will give you all the criteria that you can check before engaging a professional for drawings and hopefully will avoid a lengthy approval process as you can submit plans to regularise your work rather than run the gauntlet of planning committees. best Rowland

Hi! Right to light is a really complex legal issue. You do have a right to light, though not a right to sunshine. There are complicated calculations that can be made to check how much of an impact a proposed development will have and it will be up to the applicant to prove that. I've done this in very basic ways by modelling the shadows cast by propsoals in 3D or more simply in 2D. It can be done before anything is built - you don't need to wait and see until its built, when it will be too late. It is possible to argue against a planning application on the basis of right to light. Though I would suggest that you really need a specialists input to get much influence. There are specialist lawyers who deal with right to light, and probably specialist planning consultants too. Good luck. I hope you manage to get a good resolution for you and your daughter.

Hi Olly, Answering your Q on my old thread. We have the same hang over as Alex although it wasn't as deep as we originally wanted it. Yes it goes get hot in summer but then we open the doors out. It's also warm in winter when there's any sun at all so so far in this open plan room, I've only had the wood burner on at night and no heating. We decided that if it's the same this year then we will just put some roller blinds over each section (or say over every two sets) which we can pull down when we want and it's cheaper than permanent heat control.