The house and the brief
14 Donkin Hill is a semi detached house on a hillside street in Caversham. The family needed a fourth bedroom and a ground floor that worked better for everyday life, with a proper kitchen, a utility room and space for exercise. Extending to the side and rear gave the room they needed without losing the garden.
Design
The extension follows the form of the existing house, so it still reads as one half of a pair from the street. Roof tiles, red brickwork and window frames match the existing house, and obscure glass is used where a window faces the neighbour. On the ground floor the plan provides a kitchen and sitting area across the back of the house, a utility room, a pantry, a gym and a shower room, while the first floor gains a fourth bedroom and a larger family bathroom.
Daylight and the neighbour
Rear extensions to semi detached houses are judged against policy CC8 of the Reading Borough Local Plan on safeguarding amenity. We prepared a rear elevation showing the 45 degree line from the neighbour's nearest window, so the case officer could see that the extension stays within it and does not overshadow the adjoining house.
Parking and visibility
Extending to the side took space from the drive, and the house sits close to a bend in Donkin Hill, so parking and visibility mattered. Our highways plan shows two parking spaces on permeable hardstanding, a dropped kerb, a low hedge kept to 0.6 metres and 2.4 metre by 43 metre sightlines in both directions, in line with Reading's parking standards and Manual for Streets.
Our role
We measured the house, drew the existing and proposed plans and elevations, prepared the overshadowing study and highways plan, and managed the householder application with Reading Borough Council, answering the case officer's questions as they came up. Keeping one practice responsible for the survey, the drawings and the application meant every revision was carried through all the documents.
Revisions and building regulations
The block plan was revised twice to refine the parking layout and the extension footprint in response to comments. Once the planning drawings were settled, we prepared the building regulations drawings for the same scheme, so the builder had one consistent set of information to price and build from.
