The brief
60 Sheridan Avenue is a semi detached house in Caversham with a garden that sits lower than the house. The owners wanted to replace a cramped kitchen with an open kitchen, dining and living room at the back of the house, with direct access to a patio and the garden.
Design
The single storey rear extension runs across the back of the house with wide glazed doors to the garden. Its walls are rendered to match the house, with brick where the extension meets the original walls, and the roof is kept low so it sits comfortably below the first floor windows. The plan opens the kitchen into a new dining and living space, keeping the front rooms and stair as they were.
Levels, privacy and the boundary
Because the garden falls away from the house, the patio and decking outside the new doors sit above the neighbour's garden. To protect privacy we drew a 1.5 metre timber screen with 300 millimetres of trellis above, covered with planting, along the side of the patio, and a stepped boundary fence that follows the slope. Sections through the extension and patio show the levels clearly, which is what officers need to judge overlooking under policy CC8 of the Reading Borough Local Plan.
Constraints we checked
We checked the 45 degree daylight test to the neighbouring windows, the effect on the attached house, drainage for the new roof and patio, and whether the work could be permitted development. Because of the raised patio and its effect on privacy, a householder application with full details was the right route.
Our role
We surveyed the house and garden levels, prepared the full drawing set including the sections and fence details, and managed the householder application with Reading Borough Council. The sections were the key drawings here: they show the floor level of the extension, the patio and the neighbour's garden on one sheet, so the effect of the raised patio can be judged without a site visit. That kind of clarity helps an officer reach a view quickly and reduces requests for more information.
Revisions
The plans, elevations, roof plan and block plan went through revisions A and B in 2022, refining the screen, the fence and the depth of the patio. Each revision was issued as a complete set so the drawings and sections always matched.
