any architects or builders about? Does this sound ok??

[Thinkingofmyfabfour]

We are in process of applying for planning permission for extension which will be against neighbours wall. Its double storey and about 6m long. However neighbours decided for various reasons they didnt want our extension to touch their wall, so architect has done it with 200mm gap between the 2 parallel walls. This is to allow space for 2 separate gutter systems etc, and builders are planning to use bricks that are ? Waterproofed and dont require rendering.
Does this sound ok? I'm a bit worried about damp developing between the new walls, this would be pretty inaccessible if it did happen. Also concerned re possible vermin or birds going in the gap.
Architect has made a few mistakes along the way and I don't have a lot of faith in him now. I would be very grateful for any opinions on this
Thanks

We have a slightly bigger gap than that between our ground floor extension and the neighbours' extension (which is on our fecking boundary line) so that it can be rendered. There will basically be a foot between them to allow a skinny apprentice to shimmy his butt down there.

I don't care that they've built up to our boundary line and are now being pissy about us building at the back of our house. No, not at all. My extension is going to be bigger than theirs anyway.

Thanks mummytomog
Does your builder anticipate any issues with that? We should have made ours bigger too but are trying to aviod any issues with neighbours.

What stage are you at?

Just had a damp proof course in, so hoping to be up to roof height by the end of the month!

Neighbours were fine, so long as we manage their drainage (which is on our side of the boundary) and don't abut their walls. Probably should have done, because they have a massive crack in their render and wall on our side, which they've declined to do anything about (and got really shirty with my builder for pointing it out). If we'd built up, we would have obviously made that good. As it is, I'll probably slap a bit of render over it later.

Builder is just making sure to leave enough room to render (and get down to repair gutters if need be). He doesn't see any other problems with it. Will probably be a handy place to store folding furniture!

Our neighbours think it will be easier having separate gutters but they will be harder to access (only from small windows) which seems a bit crazy to me. I would expect there must be some building regs to follow in these situations but wouldn't be surprised if architect has missed something here