Garden downstairs - balcony extension?

[JohnLapsleyParlabane]

I'm looking for ideas / experiences as we are considering doing a big garden refurbishment incorporating a kitchen balcony to provide garden access. We have an end of terrace townhouse on a steep hill. At the moment we have patio doors out from the kitchen dining area to a small balcony 2.5m wide by 1m deep) which accesses the side path and then a staircase to the garden. The stairs run parallel to the balcony. We have no basement (and no void to access) and the garden is effectively a full floor below the level of the kitchen.
What we are thinking of applying for is to extend the balcony over the current footprint of balcony and stairs and then putting new stairs at 90 degrees, continuing the side path down to the garden.

Has anyone done anything like this? Looking at the attached for style of the new balcony and stairs.

Would the new proposed flight of steps be a lot steeper than the existing steps going down to the garden from the pathway? what is directly on the other side facing the side if your end of terrace and existing balcony?

Diagram attached. Black is current layout, blue is our idea of new layout. Stairs would be about the same length but as the garden is longer than the house is wide we could make them as long as necessary.

Looks feasible from your sketch, if course hard to tell for sure from it. Wouldn’t the view from the road be the side of your external steps going down, currently there is no such imposing view of the steps going down the side of your property, or would the steps be ofvthe sane gradient as the road just next to it, that it wouldn’t be visible? I am assuminh the new steps would be sitting on ground but elevated and supported at the top from your new balcony as the existing steos actually end in tge garden where the new steos would begin at the top?

*of the same gradient

Our entire property is lower than the road, to varying degrees and the boundary fence is 6ft,like panels, with a retaining wall below it.

Can’t comment specifics and acurately without further details/images. I’m guessing its not just steep but quite a drop from existing balcony patio to the garden. Assuming the tiny balcony is cantilevered out from the external wall and making it extend further out will need a new structure for the proposed new balcony, or is it a patio sitting on ground? the frameless structural balustrade in your pic is nice but depends also on the type of style your current house is. So again not easy to give my views on the aesthetics of it in terms of suitability, but your plan makes sense in terms of practicality u wouldnt then hv to walk the entire length of the balcony just to go round and down the steps to the garden. you have to measure calculate height of the level difference vs length of the proposed flight of steps (including landing halfway down) to see if you really have enough length bear in mind external steps need to be less steep than an internal stairs. Your sketch doesn’t seem to suggest that there is much space for the entire flight of steps to go one storey down the side of the property boundary

The gradient makes the most enormous difference to how this works in reality.

There are some very, very lovely gardens that have been built on steep slopes. They often use contouring rather than a path, weaving to and fro horizontally across the space so that you end up with a much longer path that takes in the drop more gradually.

I would get a preliminary view from a good landscape architect. There may be many possibilities here!

Thanks for your replies. My sketch is poorly scaled, but we have sufficient length of garden to replicate the current stairs plus an additional 2M.
The current structure is brick built, laid to slab, with metal balustrades ('90s executive home style). We believe there to be a void under the current stairs but the balcony is part of the house structure.
I forgot to mention that there's an unusually large step down from the patio doors to the current balcony so we imagined a new one using the old one as support, and the new level being on a par with the kitchen floor.

So the new balcony xan be cantilevered out with new structure extending out from the existing balcony ‘plinth. a structural engineer would be able to calculate and specify the new balcony and new external stairs structure. the proposed minimalist glass balustrade is a little risky aesthetically but who am to say.

*who am I to say

I think you’ll need planning

Thanks for the input