Adding a room on the back

[fromwesttoeast]

Hi,
We need an extra bedroom, ideally an extra shower room too. There are currently 7 of us in a three bed house. We saved up in tne hope of doing the loft but have been told by three different planners that it’s not possible, or the space would be so small that it’s not worth it. (Corner plot).
Next option was a room in tne garden - we have the budget for this but it’s been refused by the council.
Now we are wondering if we could somehow tack a room on the back to be used as a bedroom. There is currently an awful single skin back addition off the kitchen, which has the back door and a toilet room in it. We are wondering if we could remove that and replace it with a bigger rectangular room which would also be accessed from the kitchen. This would involve making the patio window in tne dining room smaller and building over half the existing patio.
Basically we are happy with existing downstairs layout and just want a bedroom somehow anyhow. Would the council even allow this as it’s obviously not a conventional extension- but we don’t need an open plan kitchen diner - we are satisfied with our living space.
Any thoughts?

I would imagine that as long as the size of the extension complies with current regs, it's up to you what you do with the internal space.

How long will you live there and/or how long will 7 people live there?

I'd be concerned about compromising outdoor space too much if I was planning to move one day. And a bedroom off a kitchen doesn't sound ideal so you'd need to think about that room's future use.

Can you post a floorplan?

There is a certain amount of space you can add without even needing planning permission - it’s called permitted development. A few builders I spoke to had different ideas about what would be permitted and what would need planning but what you’re describing doesn’t sound OTT. Can you see out of the upstairs windows if any of your neighbours have done similar? That would help if there’s been a precedent set.

No neighbours have done anything like this. Lots of neighbours have done extensions where they have made a bigger kitchen diner, all knocked through.
I can’t post a floor plan as it’s just in my head for now, but currently we have a straightforward dining room with small kitchen on the side of it. Imagine a rectangle divided into a third for kitchen and two thirds for the dining room. The door to the added room would be on the left back corner of the kitchen.
Future use could be as an office or study. It just makes it unconventional which isn’t ideal.
If we keep the back door would the council count that as a separate access and deny permission on that basis?

I would envisage living here for at least another 20 years. Don’t know how long the kids will stay once they’re adults - but lots of boomerang kids round here!
Garden is quite big for the size of house.

You can't do a double storey extension under permitted development (I think!) and in our area, you can't go double storey if the extension adjoins the road (so if you're on a corner, which way do you face?). But, could you use the additional room downstairs as a downstairs bedroom, or do you definitely need it upstairs?

Are you detached or semi detached? We're semi detached and have done a double storey extension on the back - it was quite expensive as we needed to re-configure the upstairs layout so we could get to the new bedroom from the landing. Also, we weren't allowed to extend within 2m of our adjoined neighbour upstairs - so we extended across the full length of the house at ground level, and then came in 2m at the first floor. Will find a pic as it's easier to understand.

Like this

That looks lovely! But I don’t want a double storey. Just a bedroom on the ground floor. One of my neighbours is currently doing a double storey extension, and there is another further down the street, but they are converting side garages. We don’t have a side space unfortunately.

We are semi detached. Proposed room would be on tne unattached side, a couple of metres from the fence.

Can you post a sketch of the floor plan now, and how you're picturing the development?

Sorry, I misunderstood. I thought you meant building above the extra room. Access via the kitchen would be strange - is there another option?

Permitted Development Rights only apply to structures below 4m in height.

All advice with planning will be entirely geographically dependent. Even within the same town rules can be different from area to area, so region to region are wildly different.

As a general rule, councils have more important things to do than worry about extensions, but if you want an educated opinion, hire a planning consultant. Expect to pay around £1,500 from start to finish (ymmv)...money well spent in my opinion. They work with your council's planning department every day and know exactly what will go through and what won't.

Neighbour objections to planning applications, unless sustainable, are irrelevant, as much as that infuriates the nimbys.

Thank you for your advice.
We had a planning consultant. He advised we try a garden annex and that’s just been refused by the council. I think it’s hard to find someone to genuinely work in your interest. They get their fee for drawing up plans - regardless of whether those plans go through or not.

Your planning consultant drew up your plans? Straight away that sets alarm bells ringing. Even using a planning consultant who is part of an architecture firm is a bad idea. They should be entirely separate.

See an independent planning consultant first, then get plans drawn up second. In my experience you can draw up plans for outline consent with a crayon if you like (slight exaggeration but you get my point), the PD don't care at that stage. Once you go for Reserved Matters you'll need complete working drawings, but up until then any old plans will do. No need to pay a fortune for plans at outline stage.

I've drawn up many plans myself for outline consent using simple Google Sketchup software. They've always been accepted. I've seen farmers apply for outline consent using a red biro on an OS map, and get it...

If the application is a matter of public record (which it should be) why not post a link to your application on the planning portal on here and I might be able to give you an idea what's going wrong.

Up to you. :)

Can I just get something confirmed here, you're talking about a single storey extension for one bedroom?

I'd need to look at the plans but it sounds to me like you wouldn't need planning, as long as your Permitted Development rights are intact and you're not in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

If it falls within the PDR you don't need to ask the council for anything, you'll just need building regs to sign it off once completed.

Get us a bit more information (ideally your planning application) and I'm pretty sure we can get this one sorted for you, or at least give you a clearer idea of how to move forward.

What was the reason the garden room was refused?

I don’t want to link to planning as I don’t want to identify my address on here. I live in a fairly standard street in a fairly ugly town.
I have attached a photo. I want to remove that back addition and put on a bigger single storey, tiled roof rectangle that extends further into the garden and further across towards the patio window - as far as possible. Currently it’s a lobby to the back door and a toilet room. I would move the back door.
The garden room was refused on tne basis that we did not provide documents to prove our sons would use it and they don’t believe we would use it as we said - as bedrooms for our older sons. We did not know we needed to provide documents. We’ve never done this before. Having a bedroom attached would be preferable anyway.

We looked round a house that had the kitchen, then the downstairs toilet/back door then a double bedroom with patio doors out the back to the garden. No problem with planning, but probably hard to sell on. It could be restyled as a study/play room etc. It is a multiuse space after all.