If it were allowed to be installed I bet it would still be banned due to smoke.
If you invest in a quality stove, you will find that they are highly fuel efficient and give off less emissions than a standard gas fire, this is a fact, although not everyone cares to let you know. Defra approved stoves generally use a 5 inch rather than the usual 6 inch diameter flue. They can safely and legallly be used in smokefree zones.
Of course to get the best results you need a quality stove, quality stainless 25 year insulated flue liner and have it competently fitted. It needs sweeping preferably more than once a year. And you need wood to burn in it, lots of dry logs. You get ignorant ill informed people who moan about stoves, they make stinky clouds of smoke an waste trees blah blah blah. They sometimes have a point if the stove is a cheap diy installed taiwan/chinease job going into a tarred up ex gas fire flue...with damp logs....A proper stove gives off basically no smoke, if its fuelled and burning correctly. And wood is a sustainable fuel, yet its amazing how much gets chippered. If you know someone who is a tree surgeon your laughing....theres logs everywhere, you soon develop a nose for them.
A decent stove is an outlay-BUT it pays for itself over the years, especially if you have the motivation and wherewithal to acquire and process your own logs (a practise I would highly recomend, a great task for you and your boy to do together)
In 2011/12 I paid £70 tops for a around 3 tons of logs, which were delivered to my gate, plus there were some extra windfalls and good stuff rescued from the chipper that I got for free. When it was all cut and split, I worked out that the same volume supplied "ready to burn" (LOL thats a joke
) off a log merchant would of been around £450
I have a woodwarm stove, absolutely brilliant, totally British designed and built piece of kit. I swear you can actually SEE the heat energy being sucked out of those logs and converted into flame heat....I'm burning willow in it at present and its
hot, wait till I start with the beech....
Good luck with the project idea,
cheers Jonathan