Inclusive Environments Flashcards
How do surveyors design and manage environments in an inclusive way?
What makes places work for everyone?
How does Buildings Regulation M relate to inclusive environments?
The Building Regulations 2010 cover the construction and extension of buildings.
You might also need building regulations approval for many alteration projects, including if you plan to:
- replace fuse boxes and connected electrics
- install a bathroom that will involve plumbing
- change electrics near a bath or shower
- put in a fixed air-conditioning system
- replace windows and doors
- replace roof coverings on pitched and flat roofs
- install or replace a heating system
add extra radiators to a heating system
You do not need to apply for approval yourself if the work is not covered by building regulations, or if it’s carried out by someone who’s registered with a competent person scheme.
You do not need building regulations approval for some exempt projects, including:
- most repairs, replacements and maintenance work (except heating systems, oil tanks, fuse boxes and glazing units)
- new power and lighting points, or changes to existing circuits (except around baths and showers)
- like-for-like replacements of baths, toilets, basins and sinks
Check with a building control body if you’re still not sure what to do.
Approved documents A-S
Approved Document M ((latest version 2015) provides information about the ease of access to, and use of, buildings, including facilities for disabled visitors or occupants, and the ability to move through a building easily including to toilets and bathrooms.
Guidance on the use of ramps and steps is covered to provide ease of access, with information including safe degrees of pitch and dimensions when building a wheelchair accessible facility. The construction of accessible stairs and corridors is also addressed, including the safe height of stairs and the accessible width of both corridors and stairs.
The document also provides guidance on the access and use of extensions made to buildings other than dwellings, and access to toilets, bathrooms and sinks within these structures.
Volume 1 - dwellings:
three different types of dwellings
Category 1 – Visitable dwellings.
Category 2 – Accessible and adaptable dwellings.
Category 3 – Wheelchair user dwellings.
Requirement M4(1): Category 1 – Visitable dwellings
Compliance with this requirement is achieved when a new dwelling makes reasonable provision for most people, which includes wheelchair users to access and enter the dwelling, and access habitable rooms and sanitary facilities on the entrance level.
Requirement M4(2): Category 2 – Accessible and adaptable dwellings
This requirement is met when a new dwelling provides reasonable provision for most people to access the dwelling and includes features that make it suitable for a range of potential occupants, including older people, individuals with reduced mobility and some wheelchair users.
Requirement M4(3): Category 3 – Wheelchair user dwellings
This requirement is achieved when a new dwelling provides reasonable provisions for a wheelchair user to live in the dwelling and have the ability to use any outdoor space, parking and communal facilities.
Volume 2 - Access to and use of buildings other than dwellings
The requirements of M1 – M3 will be achieved when reasonable provision is made to ensure that buildings are accessible and usable and that individuals, regardless of their age, gender or disability are able to, ‘…gain access to buildings and to gain access within buildings and use their facilities, both as visitors and as people who live and work in them.’
How does the National Planning Policy Framework relate to inclusive environments?
NPPF 2012:
3 objectives of sustainable dev (social, econ, enviro)
by fostering a well-designed and safe built enviro, with accessible services and open spaces that reflect current and future needs and support communities’ health, social and cultural well-being
plans should:
- be shaped by effective engagement between plan-makers and comms
- be accessible through use of digital tools to assist public
- Promoting healthy and safe comms
- Achieving well-designed places
CHECK UPDATE
How do SCC’s Local planning policies relate to inclusive environments?
