Building a roof terrace / garden on garage roof - has anyone done it?

[UnnecessaryFennel]

We have a 1930s detached house with a flat-roof single garage to the side. We could access the roof from our landing by putting in a door where there is currently a window.

DH and I would love to build a roof terrace, that would be mainly for growing fruit and veg, rather than socialising (eg no intention of installing a BBQ or hot tub, although might pop a deckchair up there!)

The house is at an angle to the road so if you were standing on the garage roof you would be overlooking the road rather than anyone's back garden, and we only have neighbours on one side anyway.

I know we'd need planning but I also read that the govt are going to try and relax planning laws for roof terraces to encourage greening / sustainability of urban areas.

Has anyone done similar? Any tips, good websites or books I should be reading, etc?

You'll need to look at the load capacity of the roof. It's not designed for load bearing and would probably need to replace the roof to provide enough structural integrity.

You'll need to consider structural issues, eg, as Van34 said, the existing roof probably isn't load bearing. The walls might not be strong enough or have deep enough foundations to bear extra weight.

And practical issues: do you really want to traipse through the house and up the stairs to get to your vegetable garden? Carrying bags of compost, tomato grow-bags etc? And carrying down trimmings and rubbish at the end of the season? How are you going to water the plants - run a long hosepipe up from the garden or use watering cans?