Hi All
Changing a pair of doors would not constitute a significant change which
would need to conform to Building Regulaions Part M. Nor would they need to
conform to the DDA Part III until 1 October 2004. However, during some work
we recently undertook we came into contact with a number of senoir members
of the legal profession, some of whom may hear DDA cases. One in particular
made it quite clear that where work was undertaken since 2 December 1996 and
the requirement date of 2 October 2004 and the needs of the DDA were not
met, a judgement would probably be made against the rganisation as they were
aware of the requirement and chose to ignore it at an opportune time. They
could have covered the DDA needs at minimal additional expense if they had
done so at the same time. We were advised that the "justifiable defence" on
financial grounds would be dismissed.
Interestingly enough the example we were then given were the two major banks
who have recently completely changed their corporat identity. In so doing
they had changed all their signs and had not installed tactile signs. If a
complaint were made against either of them it was considered unlikely they
would now find any reasonable defence. I would therefore suggest that the
library should have done something about DDA requirements now and perhaps
the councils Access Officer was failing in his duty in allowing the chage as
described to go ahead.
Tony Addison
Email [log in to unmask]
Tel: 01473 822787
-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask]
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of G.D.Williams
Sent: 13 September 2000 12:13
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Library Doors
Consider this, the situation maybe circumstantial,
If the new doors were part of a need to update the fire strategy then
it is possible that any 'material change' would need to comply with
Building Regulations, if the fire strategy improvements were
alterations to a building requiring changes to a fire-certificate
needing Fire Brigade approval hence L.Authority approval.
Sometimes improvements come about because because of
the need to comply with the Fire Precautions (Workplace)
Regs 97 which might not incurr Building Regs.
However a prudent designer might use Building Regs as a standard
to reference design to.
Maybe a library might be covered by part 111 of D.D.A '95
as a 'service provider' and design needs to consider D.D.A .
Obviously circumstances will vary with each project and the
reason for carrying it out. Maybe it was just simply replacing
worn out doors with new ones. Maintenence and repair may
not be covered by Building regs.
differerent legislation. Often with improvements it is only the
altered elements that need to comply with Building Regs
not the whole building. Hope this helps.
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