Eurocodes and Building Regs

[Tony Gage]

There has been a letter 29th January 2010 published on the Governments communities web site that issues instructions regarding the introduction of the Eurocodes. Whilst it does not say that the present BS's will be allowable for design, the Schedules will not be amended to 2013 and therefore the BS's will still be listed and presumably usable.

[Tony Bryer]

Thanks for that. The letter is at http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/planningandbuilding/pdf/1454859.pdf .

"... When assessing compliance with the Building Regulations, BCBs should continue to consider the appropriate use of relevant standards on a case by case basis. This may include the use of the new BS ENs, which formally become the new national standards in April 2010 reflecting the changes made by the standards organisations. There is no need to wait until April 2010.

The British Standards to be withdrawn on 31 March are and will remain available from BSI. But BSI committees have already stopped updating those British Standards, and so they may not necessarily be suitable for aspects of structural design in the medium and long term.

When an Approved Document makes reference to a named standard, the relevant version of the standard is the one listed at the end of the publication. However, if this version has been revised or updated by the issuing standards body, the new version may be used as a source of guidance provided it continues to address the relevant requirements of the Regulations.". [my emphasis]

The letter also confirms that the next Part A Approved Document will be published in 2013, so in meantime the BSs listed in the current AD can be used, though my own hope is that by the end of the year there will be no reason not to use Eurocodes. Currently quite a bit of the supporting material used by SuperBeam and ProSteel users (e.g. the 'Green Book') has yet to be revised in accordance with the corresponding Eurocodes.