Part L faces further delay
Revisions to Part L of the Building Regulations, which are expected to set more challenging energy targets for buildings, could be delayed by over six months.
The Government was due to release consultation documents explaining the changes before Easter so that interested parties could comment by the autumn ahead of their implementation in April 2010. However, as the consultation period has still not started, insiders at DEFRA - the department that manages the Regulations - have admitted that the deadlines are likely to be missed.
It is now thought the new Part L may not come into force until October 2010.
However, more positive news concerns the fact that commissioning and commissioning strategies are set to be critical parts of the new regulations. It is widely believed that the revised Part L will include a requirement for building services designers to submit commissioning plans to local Building Control before a project can commence.
This is consistent with the Government's stated aim that systems should perform more as they were designed throughout their operating life.
Consulting engineer Steve Irving of AECOM, who helped to draft the revisions, told the recent CIBSE national conference that it was important for designers to be forced "to think about how a building will be commissioned" at the design stage.