YORKSHIRE & THE HUMBER

摘要

I'm writing my copy for the "Round-up" early this month. This is partly because I left it too late for last month's deadline (due to high seasonal workload) and didn't want to risk being late again; and partly because this seems like a good opportunity to get this down on paper whilst it's still fresh in my mind. I am sitting in a hotel room in Hull, having spent the day in Newcastle at a jointly-run seminar on the forthcoming effects of the Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order, hereinafter colloquially referred to as the "RRO". I was asked a few weeks ago to stand-in for Chief Executive David Gibson as the ABE's speaker at the event, as David himself was not able to be there. And now, I'm in Hull because I'm doing the same presentation again tomorrow morning. The RRO is massively important in my view and the ABE is a member of the Stakeholder Group responsible for bringing it through its gestation period and into force later this year. It brings all aspects of general fire safety together in to one (very large) piece of legislation and replaces or supplants a number of other existing Acts and Regulations that overlap in significant areas, to the general distress and confusion of the persons concerned. It also places the emphasis onto Building Owners and Employers, to take responsibility for the safety of the premises that they occupy and to undertake a detailed Risk Assessment for Fire Safety and, furthermore, to keep that Risk Assessment under regular review throughout the life of the building. From a building designer's viewpoint, the RRO imposes a requirement to consider the impact of any proposed "Building Works" upon the whole of a building or a site, not just the area of that site in the immediate vicinity of the works. As an example, Building Work in this context may entail structural alterations or perhaps just alterations to building services affecting just a small part of a much larger building or complex. It will be a requirement to undertake a risk assessment of the potential effect of those Building Works upon the whole of the building or complex. The fire Risk Assessment will also have to interface with the general provisions of the various sections of the Building Regulations, including, for example, the provisions of Part M for access/egress of persons with mobility difficulties. In some cases, it may be that the knock-on effects in terms of improvements to access/egress facilities extend right out to the perimeter of the site.