Architect's fees

[tony1851]

are we paying over the odds for him being with RIBA

Most definitely yes. Registered architects may have a few fancy ideas but they are often less skilled than a good architectural technician at getting proper working drawings out and getting your approvals.
As for 'taking a risk', what is likely to go wrong? If anything did 'go wrong', you can bet your architect will avoid any responsibility. RIBA exists for the architect, not for the client.
You may also have to pay a SE for the calculations required for new beams etc; has he advised you of this?

 

[^woody^]

<stuff here>

Lets hope your design skills are better than your thread quoting skills.

It helps if you click the "quote" button on the post you want to quote, not paraphrase it