Building Regulation Guidance Documents

Approved Documents are what most people confuse with the actual Building Regulations. The Approved Documents do no more than give guidance as to how to comply with the Regulations and are generally the simplest method of showing complaince. The documents are free to download by using the link below to the Planning Portal, however please note that neither the Building Regulations nor Building Control are Planning legislation or functions. Compliance with the Regulations therefore, does not constitute Planning Permission.

Periodically the Approved Documents change, for example Approved Document L1A changed on the 1st October 2010. That means any application submitted prior to that date can still comply with the old standard (subject to transitional arrangements), whilst anything submitted afterwards must comply with the new document.

You do not have to follow the guidance in the Approved Documents, you can choose to show complaince another way if you wish. For example, you could use British or European Standards, obtain an independent test certificate for your construction, or design a fire engineered solution, etc.

However the standards used must be no worse than those set by the Approved Documents.

Click here to access all of the current Approved Documents.