Permission is always required for any building work or alterations to be done on your property, but it’s not always clear how Planning and Building Regulations approval processes differ. There are also responsibilities under the construction health and safety regulations to consider. Building Regulations set standards for the design and construction of buildings to ensure safety and health for people in or about those buildings. They also include requirements to ensure things such as fuel and power are conserved and facilities are provided for people, including those with disabilities, to access and move around inside buildings. Planning is there to guide the way towns, cities and countryside develop, including the use of land & buildings, how buildings look, landscaping, access to highways and how the development will affect the general environment. For most building works, separate processes are required for both Building Regulations and Planning Permission. For building work, such as internal alterations, Buildings Regulations approval is needed, but Planning permission may not always be necessary. When in doubt you should always contact your Local Planning Authority or a Building Control Body. When carrying out, or having construction or building work done, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) may need to be notified and there may be other duties as well under the Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2007 (CDM 2007). Although a domestic client does not have duties under CDM 2007, those who work for them on construction projects do. If you are considering having building works, email us sales@batterseabuilders.co.uk and one of our team will be able to advise you further.

Hi Paula, Wow loads of great advice already ! I'd suggest you ask your builder if he can recommend a structural engineer, that he's worked with previously, to come and view the stack - it may be that by extending the thick nub on bottom left of that area marked, that you can then put one beam across to support above? ( but I'm not a SE - so you will need on site advice for this !!) I'm the concept planner that Minnie added the link for ( thank you Minnie !!) We sell purely design, no product. So charge for our services, rather than making a mark up on what you buy, like a showroom would. (We have a few types of service - the most expensive, for a project this size, is about the same cost as a good dishwasher) But that does mean you get a PDF with all the plans/elevations/colour perspectives, panoramics and item listing to shop around with, which means you can compare like for like and negotiate great deals with showrooms/studios/even online suppliers of kitchen furniture and appliances etc. We can even supply colour A3 prints, if you want, too ! So we are a bit different to a free studio service - but can work well for busy people who want an input into the design stage ( we have a service that involves you throughout the design process over a five day period) and those who want to approach a few different studios or online suppliers to quote, but that don't have the time to deal with several site visits from several designers and to sit through several presentations that are all different - so it becomes a bit confusing to see who's offering the best deal ! You simply email them your design PDF - or drop them in a printed copy, ask for their best price as you are shopping around. All they need to do initially is price it - so much easier for the studios too ! Anyway enough of the 'sales pitch' from me ! Best wishes for your project, which ever route you choose ! :-)

There are different types of Architects and different types of Designers. I would talk to a few people and get their rates along with idea of how they work. Some will see their job in a very practical way, at the other end of the scale sometimes Designers can be all about the look without due consideration for the way you will be living the space. An Architect might well have ideas about how to arrange the main structure and windows, doors etc. more usefully than the current plan. That's not to say that a Designer wouldn't also look at that but most of them, I suspect, would just work with the proposal you have for the building. Small changes might make a big difference though. Anyone will be happy to talk on the phone. Some will charge for a consultation and others won't, some might decide about that whilst you are telling them about the project!! If the consultation fee isn't huge it might be worth talking to one or two 'onsite'. Fees can vary a huge amount, as can the experience, knowledge and qualifications of the person you are dealing with. We tend to expect these things to be on proportion to each other but very often they are not at all. I recall speaking to a winner of 'Best in Show' at the Chelsea Flower Show who said that after winning he found that one client had gone to someone else, believing that he would be too expensive and actually paid more than he would have charged. That was for a garden design of course but the two scenarios are becoming increasingly similar. It is worth asking about insurance. A professional should carry Professional Indemnity Insurance. Everyone tends to assume that all professionals do. Unfortunately this is not the case. It pleases me when clients ask about this.

Hi Tim & Mark, I feel your pain on this - especially those essential little clues you get from the dimensional survey. I don't think there's an easy answer, other than 'interrogating' the client for more detail! For example, recently I was working remotely on feasibility for a project where 2 walls were to be removed; no dimensional survey at this stage but I had a fair idea of the house type so had sketched it out to get a rough idea in front of me. When talking with the client by video I asked her to get the camera into the roofspace to show the roof structure, spans, purlins etc to confirm my suspicions that both walls were supporting, and just what they were supporting. This alone allowed the feasibility discussion to move in the best direction, given that the construction budget was too tight to allow for the necessary structural work in removing both walls. In broader terms, the simple answer for how to get the survey done is to glean all the information you can to make an 'educated guess' as to the house layout (from external photos, etc), then draw this out for the client to add dimensions to. It's often a very iterative process whereby you might get the external walls, windows, doors, etc but find that something internally isn't quite right - so back to the client by email / video / etc for photos / dimensions of a specific area until it all makes sense. In simpler jobs the detail in a specific area might be sufficient (eg the effected areas for a kitchen extension to bungalow with just a knock-through and roof junctions), while for other jobs we've gotten to an agreed feasibility design using the client's dimensions and then I've gone to site (Majorca, Henley, etc) to conduct the full dimensional survey for detailed design (obviously under different circumstances from today!). I don't think there's any doubt that remote design suits the feasibility stages better than the detailed stages, but if it makes a connection with clients, and is helpful to them, without incurring expensive travel, or breaking lock-down, then it can be quite useful. Although as I said above, for me nothing beats personal face-to-face contact. Hope this helps.