The Building Regulations provide for the health, safety, welfare and convenience of those in and around buildings and the sustainability of buildings for current and future generations. In order to do this they set standards through both technical and procedural requirements for those carrying out building work. Therefore this notification has relevance for services including design and construction services for controlled building works and related construction products.

Updating references to technical standards in Building Regulation guidance documents; Approved Document A(Structure), Approved Document B(Fire Safety) and Approved Document C(site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture).

The Building Regulations 2010 provide for the health, safety, welfare and convenience of those in and around buildings, setting technical and procedural requirements for those carrying out building work. Statutory guidance on some of the ways of meeting the functional requirements of the regulations are provided in Approved Documents.

We are proposing technical updates to Approved Documents A(Structure), B(Fire Safety) and C(site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture) in Wales. The proposals do not involve policy change, but are based on updating of references to technical standards that were previously undertaken by the Department for Communities and Local Government (DCLG) for England in 2013.

Approved Document A (Structure)

The main changes proposed are replacement of the currently-referenced standards with the updated British Standards based on Eurocodes. Other more minor and generally related amendments are proposed, for example, in relation to disproportionate collapse and wind maps.

Approved Document B (Fire safety)

There are two proposals intended to resolve practical problems in the application of Requirement B2 (Internal fire spread (linings)). Firstly, it is proposed to make a technical amendment to ensure wall coverings are not inadvertently and unnecessarily disadvantaged because of how certain wall coverings are assessed under the European classification system for fire performance. Secondly to amend the existing guidance in relation to lighting diffusers which is now believed to be unnecessarily onerous.

Approved Document C (Site preparation and resistance to contaminants and moisture)

The main element of the proposals is an amendment to align the Approved Document C guidance with the most up-to-date radon maps, in effect, ensuring that the current safety provisions are targeted at the appropriate parts of the country. Other minor amendments to the Approved Document proposed include updating a number of referenced standards.