When was building regulations introduced

A comprehensive Act in covered the whole built-up area. Its detailed set of regulations included the stipulation that doors and windows should be recessed at least four inches from the front of the building. The statute set a fashion which was soon emulated outside London.

The returns of the District Surveyors survive from By the 18th century some kind of building control had been established in many British cities. In Scotland each medieval burgh operated a Dean of Guild Court, which dealt with rights of access and nuisances.

So when the burghs began to develop building regulations in the 17th century, they fell within the remit of the Dean of Guild Court. Surviving Court records are usually in local archives, but some are in the National Archives of Scotland. After Edinburgh suffered a series of fires, an Act of the City Council in gave the Court authority to enforce new building regulations, ratified in by an Act of the Scottish Parliament.

Among other things it restricted buildings to five storeys. The London Building Acts provided prototypes for provincial towns. When Warwick was destroyed by fire in , it was rebuilt under an Act of Parliament modelled on that of for London. Borsay, The English Urban Renaissance , Later Building Acts were passed for Bristol and and Liverpool and The returns of Bristol's surveyors survive from More commonly though towns sought to tackle a variety of problems through local improvement Acts.

It operated until , generating minute books, architectural drawings and maps, which are held by Dublin City Archives. Between and nearly improvement Acts were passed for towns in England and Wales. They might be concerned with street cleaning and lighting, or more ambitious. Acts for creating new streets and widening old ones gave the local authority at least a limited degree of building control.

Martin Gaskell, Building Control: National legislation and the introduction of local bye-laws in Victorian England , Building regulation was a patchwork of different provisions in different places. In the early Victorian period central government became concerned about the conditions of the urban poor. Outbreaks of cholera created alarm.

A series of government inquiries identified problems of overcrowding, lack of water and sanitation. Home Secretary Lord Normanby proposed a national building Act in , to apply to all borough councils in the British Isles. The bill failed.

However some of its proposals were incorporated into the Metropolitan Building Act of , which once again extended the area covered by London's building control. It was a series of Public Health Acts that established a more consistent apparatus for controlling the urban fabric. The first such Act in had limited impact on buildings, but laid out the framework of local authority in England and Wales, known initially as boards of health.

The Local Government Act of extended the powers of these local authorities to regulate the structure of buildings through bye-laws. The government issued a set of guidelines called the Form of Bye-laws, which were followed quite closely by most English and Welsh urban authorities in the s.

A similar Act was passed for Ireland in and one for Scotland in This burst of Victorian regulation generated records of great value for the historian. It is perhaps best suited to small work however.

There are also specific exclusions in the regulations as to when building notices cannot be used. Some types of building work, notifiable under the Building Regulations, can be performed by personnel authorised as competent under various defined self-certification schemes. Self-certification gives competent people the ability to self-certify that their work complies with the Building Regulations without the need to submit a building notice and hence saves on inspections.

Certification of compliance by third-party certifiers of some types of work was introduced in April by the Building, etc Amendment Regulations SI No. Changes to the bodies authorised to operate schemes to register persons as competent to certify compliance will occasionally happen so checks should be made to ensure the current status of any such body. Under s. Any person who does so is liable to unlimited fines. In addition, or as an alternative, the local authority may, by notice under s.

Breach of a duty imposed by the Building Regulations is actionable in civil proceedings unless the regulations provide otherwise, so far as it causes damage. Fire safety breaches under the RRO are criminal offences, and penalties can include prison sentences. It is advisable to contact the local authority prior to commencing work to ensure that any exemptions are applicable. Application may be made to the local planning authority for a particular requirement of the regulations to be relaxed or dispensed with if the developer thinks that the circumstances justify it.

Even if the Building Regulations do not apply to the proposal, there may be legislation that does, eg planning, listed building or conservation area legislation. Building Regulations are different to planning permissions and separate permission will be required for many types of building work. Building Regulations set standards for the design and construction of buildings. Planning, on the other hand, seeks to guide development.

For many types of building work, permission under both regimes will be required. However, for things like internal alterations, Buildings Regulations approval will probably be needed, but Planning permission may not be.

In preparing her report, Dame Judith Hackitt has observed that the regulations and approved documents have become too easy to circumvent. Her conclusion is that operators need to place more emphasis on ensuring safety, rather than mere compliance with regulations.

It is likely, therefore, that any review of the regulatory system will have this at its core. The Building Regulations and related guidance, including Approved Documents, continued to apply in Wales until Welsh Ministers make changes to them. This includes:. Starting in , Approved Documents applicable in Wales have seen amendments and indeed some replacements by new versions issued by the Welsh Government. The most recent amendments came into force in May Responsibility for building control in Scotland now falls under Building Standards Division as part of the Directorate for the Built Environment.

This includes the power to make regulations to:. The empowering act, the Building Scotland Act , introduced the new Scottish building standards system, which was introduced on 1 May The system is designed to protect the public interest in the design, construction, conversion and demolition of buildings.

This amends the building statute on carbon dioxide emissions to apply to larger extensions to non-domestic buildings and also clarifies the section on EPCs in regards to alterations and extensions.

Guidance on the regulations can be found on the Scottish Government website. The Scottish Government has also launched a dedicated planning portal. The Building Regulations are supported by two Technical Handbooks — one for domestic and the other, non-domestic buildings. Each is published in a number of parts and contains practical guidance on ways to meet the requirements of the standards. If the guidance is followed in full, then this should be accepted by the verifier as indicating that the Building Regulations have been complied with.

However, it is quite acceptable to use alternative methods of compliance provided they fully satisfy the regulations. Special guidance is available to those constructing conservatories in Scotland in the Building Standards.

Amendments to the Technical Handbooks are issued regularly, usually annually, with details available through the SBS website and are available in hard copy from The Stationery Office. The latest versions were published in July The purpose of the Handbook is to clarify the intent of the procedure regulations and expand upon the procedures set out by the Act. Unlike the Technical Handbooks and other guidance documents issued by Scottish Ministers to support the building regulations, this handbook has no specific legal status, but is designed to aid the practical operation of the procedures.

The third edition of the Procedural Handbook, version 1. Once the building has been completed, it may not be occupied until the building authority has issued a certificate of completion and, in the case of electrical installations, a certificate from the installer declaring that the work conforms to the requirements laid down in the regulations. As a result, building warrant and associated fees were increased to allow the Scottish Building Standards system achieve full cost recovery.

The building control system in Northern Ireland is very similar to that in operation in England and Wales. The Building Regulations in Northern Ireland are the responsibility of the Department of Finance and Personnel, and are intended to ensure the health, welfare and convenience of people in and around buildings. The regulations do not apply in relation to work that has been completed, or for which plans have been deposited with a district council, before that date.

The regulations follow a similar structure to those in England and Wales. They make mandatory requirements in relation to:. Such work requires approval by a local authority or an approved inspector. Fees are payable for such approval. Other methods can be used provided compliance can be demonstrated.

An amending document was published in making amendments to Technical Bulletins F1 and F2. A list of Technical Booklets can also be found in the Publications section below. With the clear need to improve the energy efficiency, the Building Regulations introduced the concept that when building work is carried out on existing large buildings those with a floor area greater than m 2 , improvements must also be made to the whole building to improve its energy efficiency.

When there is a material change of use, any retained element or fitting whose thermal performance is worse than a defined threshold should be upgraded. When there is a material alteration, any element that becomes part of the external envelope, where previously it was not, should be upgraded if its thermal performance is worse than a defined threshold. Consequential improvements should be carried only to the extent that they are technically, functionally and economically feasible.

As part of the consultation on Part L of the Building Regulations in , it was proposed to extend requirements for consequential improvements to domestic dwellings, with financial support provided through the Green Deal. In late however, this proposal was dropped, although the Green Deal is in place to help fund other energy-saving improvements to homes or businesses. The certificates provide a rating of the energy efficiency and carbon emissions of a building from A to G, where A is very efficient and G is very inefficient.

EPCs are produced using standard methods with standard assumptions about energy usage, so that the energy efficiency of one building can be easily compared with another building of the same type.

This should allow prospective buyers, tenants, owners, occupiers and purchasers to consider energy efficiency and fuel costs as part of their investment. An EPC must be provided before a property goes to market for sale or rent. DECs are intended to show the actual energy usage of a building, the operational rating, and help the public to be aware of the energy efficiency of a building. DECs are only required for public buildings — those that are occupied by a public authority or an institution providing a public service to a large number of persons — with a total floor area greater than m 2.

DECs show the energy consumption of the building as recorded by gas, electricity and other meters. The DEC should be clearly displayed at all times in a prominent place clearly visible to the public. An E rating is likely to be the minimum standard for private rentals from At this point, it is expected that the regulations will ban the letting of F- and G-rated properties by introducing minimum standards for energy efficiency and empowering tenants to request energy efficiency improvements.

In Wales, the Building Amendment Regulations apply. However, the changes to the Building Regulations and its supporting Approved Documents do not apply in Wales, but to England only.

This requires the production of energy certificates for certain classes of buildings, using certain software that has been approved for use in Scotland. All properties — homes and commercial — when sold, built or rented, require an Energy Performance Certificate EPC to be produced. Display Energy Certificates do not apply in Scotland. In the twelfth century, London became the first city in Britain to be granted a Royal charter, entitling it to have its own mayor and some degree of self-government.

An early product of this development was the formulation of byelaws regulating the construction of buildings in the city. Originally these were concerned with matters of safety and fire precautions, but as London grew they came to set standards of good building practice and town planning and to regulate many of the administrative problems of urban settlement.

Immediately afterwards Charles II issued a proclamation that the rebuilding would be in brick or stone and that streets would be wide enough to prevent fire crossing from one side to the other.

Sir Christopher Wren amongst others was commissioned to draft regulations that became the London Building Act , to be enforced by the first district surveyors.

This extended the scope beyond fire safety to include structural load-bearing walls, foundations, timber in party walls, joist centres, beam bearings, roof coverings and rainwater gutters and down-pipes.