Changing my garage - PP or not PP

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hi,
I've a really well built brick garage behind my house, built in about 1950 and had a corrugated concrete asbestos roof. side door windows and obviously garage doors to the front. it sits 1 metre behind my house and the outer wall is on the boundary with the neighbours garden.
we had an extension to the side of our house done a number of years ago which filled up the drive to the garage, so now it's sat in the back garden with no vehicular access. I've decided to do it up, brick up the garage doors, new windows and side door, new roof, plaster boarded out, carpet it and let the kids run riot in there.
Originally the roof was double pitched and the height was 3.2m at the apex
i'm planning to do a flat roof on it to stay within the PDR but the thing is my garden is on a very slight incline so at the back 2.5m on the outside wall gives me a ceiling height of about 2.4m but if i measure at the front outside 2.5m gives me about 2.3m ceiling height.
I've spoken to planning and they said below 2.5m nothing is required. above would need PP. but where can i legally say i measured it from and defend myself? also, how do i stand if i tried to take a cheeky 10cm extra on the basis that this is a refurb of a building thats been there for at least 40 years at a height of 3.2m

i did read something about measurements have to be taken from the highest point of natural ground, where is this stated and can i use that to help me?
I also explained all of what i wanted to do to building regs and he said, it a garage, less than 30m sq. so wasnt interested. when i pressed him about the use of the building, he insisted it's just a very posh garage. you really don't need anything.

also, where exactly would you say the eaves were on a flat roof building?

Thoughts greatfully recieved.
 
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Firstly, I'm VERY surprised the Building Inspector basically took a blind eye to it because it's clearly a garage converstion to a habitable room, where all different kinds of regulations come into force. But if they have let you carry on without the need in submitting an application, then you're lucky. Just hope if/when this person leaves, somebody else who picks up their patch, comes across it and asks for a regularisation certificate to be made. Or... if any problems were to arise if/when you sell the house.

I'm assuming when you applied for planning permission for the extension, they were aware that access to/from the garage would no longer be possible so them or the highways department didn't bring up the loss of parking spaces issue? Only reason I mention that is that a garage conversion would normally require a planning application based on the loss of parking. Or... if it was a previous planning condition, then you would have to apply to have the condition varied or discharged.

As for the change of roof. In reality, you're not making the garage (roof) any worse than it was. If anything, you're decreasing the volume of the building by replacing a pitch roof with a flat roof so in that respect, I don't think you have anything to worry about.

The eaves of a building with a flat roof would be the underside of the fasica or the soffit. The soffit/fascia would have approx. 25-50mm overhang with a fascia depth of approx. 150/200mm deep so it'd be measured from ground level to the underside of that.
 
thanks for the response.
as i said, i did talk to both planning and building regs.
planning said what i was doing was within the permitted rights if i stay at 2.5m roof height.

She then said she couldnt comment on regs so fetched out of his officve, i went thru it all again with sketches of the location and what i wanted to do. he said it's less than 30sq metres, there no water and no beds, so it's and outhouse, just quite a posh one. so you can carry on. He was very keen for me to take the message that he really didnt want to get involved.
you can apply for a cert of lawfull development, but i would actually need one. just a nice to have for future ref.
so currently we have no plans to move ,so i'm saving my money.

I am in derby and there have been a number of issues with the planning dept being somewhat lax. If that works in my favour, then so be it. although i wouldnt knowingly do anything structurally dodgy. and i'd have to say the builder i'm using seems very straight, so i'm sure he'd let me know if he wasnt happy with what i was asking him to do.
 
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We "tried" that down this way, but planning and building reg's were right onto it. It has it's pro's and con's :)
 

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