We live in a top floor flat and currently have a broken sunshade which is supposed to come out form the side of the building and shade out balcony (it doesn't, also when it wasn't broken). The rest of the house has refused our plans for one which would cover the whole balcony because the neighbours have one which covers half and it wouldn't match. We can't afford to pay for what they have and, by their own admission, it's pretty useless.
The area we want to shade is 5.8m (the length of our windows/doors) by a max. of 5m (the balcony railing).
Building regs of our area state an unheated, open structure linked to a building for non-living purposes up to a height of 2.5m and area of 10 square m does not need planning permission. I'm assuming that if it doesn't need planning permission and is not fixed in anyway that we won't need the other owners to approve, although I shall check this.
Hit me with ideas of how you would shade this area. I don't particularly want to be faffing around with rearranging parasols throughout the day. I am actually considering a scaffolding frame + sun sail right now, but I would prefer something less ugly. And we're on the roof, so get quite a bit of wind.