Building Regulations News Roundup - December 2006

A brief synopsis of some of the key news items related to technical guidance, construction practice, and new regulations that you might have missed in the press.

Code for Sustainable Homes launched
The Code for Sustainable Homes is a national standard intended to prepare the construction industry for the introduction of the Energy Performance Certificates in June 2007. The DCLG says that the Code is a "means of driving continuous improvement, greater innovation and exemplary achievement in sustainable home building."
NBS are organising a seminar in March to explore, in detail, the ways in which this (currently voluntary) standard will affect the way that we design, build and use our homes in the future.

Planning delays
The Home Builders Federation (HBF) figures, released on 27 November, show that winning planning approval takes on average nine months – nearly three times the government’s target that 60 per cent be determined in 91 days. Currently the average delay is 17 days between submission and application registration, whereas the statutory target is 24 hours. More than three months are spent in delays between a committee resolution to grant permission and the issuing of the decision notice. Appeals take an average of 309 days, or more than 10 months, from being lodged to a decision being received.
AJ Plus, 28th November 2006

Emissions cuts
A new government consultation proposes emission reduction measures targeted at large energy users such as supermarkets, hospitals, large offices, hotel chains and large local authorities with an electricity consumption higher than 3000MWh (equivalent to annual electricity bills over £250,000 at current energy prices). Proposals range from compulsory participation in an allowance trading scheme, to be known as the Energy Performance Commitment (EPC), to voluntary reporting. The consultation also proposes changes to building regulations, industry agreements and enhancement of information provision to business.
Workplace Law Network ebulletin, 29th November 2006.

Housing density standards relaxed
Planning Policy Statement 3, published at the end of November, allows councils to set out their own housing density standards. It says that authorities will be able to undercut the existing minimum standard of 30 dwellings per ha. The document gives local councils more freedom to set their own car parking standards.

• Excludes low cost ‘for sale’ housing from the definition of affordable housing contributions
• Allows councils to cut the size of sites that affordable housing must be delivered on
• Scraps the greenfield land direction under which the government vets all major housing scheme with a density lower than 30 dph
• Maintains the existing national target that 60% of housing must be built on brownfield land
• Requires local authorities to identify a 15 years land supply for housing
• Encourages good quality housing design
• Makes developers take the needs of families into account when planning housing development by ensuring provision of play space for children
• Allows developers to provide affordable housing off-site

Building Online, 29th November 2006.

Approved Document B
The key change in the revised Approved Document Part B, due for imminent release and due to come into force in April 2007, is a fundamental switch of emphasis from prescriptive design solutions to a risk assessment-based approach. Even so the new approved documents – two instead of one, covering dwellings and non-dwellings separately – provide for more detail of the new compliance criteria and will run to more than double the length of the 2002 edition. Changes of note include alterations to provision of means of escape, travel distance calculations and acceptance of ‘alternative means’. There is also a new duty on building designers to provide detailed information on the maintenance and operation of buildings. For non-dwellings, Fire Certificates were scrapped in October, and the onus placed on a ‘responsible person’ (building owner, employer etc.) to ensure safety through preventative measures. The NBS summary and details of  a forthcoming NBS seminar on Part B at London’s Building Centre on 30 January 2007 are at: http://www.thenbs.com/BuildingRegs/newsEvents/defaultPartBEvent.asp.

Safety merger
The Health and Safety Commission has launched a public consultation on a possible merger of the HSC and the Health and Safety Executive into one authority. At the moment the HSC has overall responsibility for occupational health and safety regulations in Great Britain. The HSE looks after health and safety in nuclear installations, mines, factories, farms, hospitals and schools, offshore gas and oil installations, the safety of the gas grid and the movement of dangerous goods and substances, and many other aspects of the protection of workers and the public.
Building Online, 6th December 2006.

Steel thermal bridging
Thermal bridging has become more of an issue following the introduction of the latest revision of Part L of the Building Regulations for England and Wales in April this year. This article examines the issues.
New Steel Construction, November 2007.

Carbon fix
Soil is the second-largest reservoir of carbon compounds on the planet, exceeded only by the oceans. However, the dynamics of how carbon enters and leaves the soil, and how long it stays there once it's locked up by growing plants and microbes, has been difficult to study. A new study by the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research has examined the stability of carbon in soils over millennia.
New Scientist, 2nd December 2006, p.13