There will, I’m sure, be a schemes where the budget allows the hiring of consultants to provide comliant designs, but these will be few and far between.
In most cases, I think the construction team looks to building control to provide a solution, and I’m not sure that there will be sufficient knowledge, let alone time, for building control to to this.
The ODPM’s working parties responsible for writing guidance need to ensure the regulations can be understood by the average construction professional, not just the specialist consultant. They must consider the smaller contractors and designers, who are responsible for most of schemes built in the UK. If this does not happen, the cost to the end user will rocket, as they will have to employ a whole tribe of consultants to bring the simplest of schemes to fruition.
Postscript
Peter Shattock, GSA Corporate Approved Inspectors
