{"id":110140,"date":"2022-04-29T11:44:11","date_gmt":"2022-04-29T10:44:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/?p=110140"},"modified":"2022-04-29T11:44:11","modified_gmt":"2022-04-29T10:44:11","slug":"supporting-compliance-safety-built-environment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pbctoday.co.uk\/news\/building-control-news\/supporting-compliance-safety-built-environment\/110140\/","title":{"rendered":"Supporting compliance and safety in the built environment"},"content":{"rendered":"

With construction facing an increasingly complex regulatory system, the Construction Innovation Hub has partnered with Cardiff University\u2019s Digital Compliance Network to help firms navigate the evolving landscape. Impact director David Philp and digital construction lead Dr Ahmed Alnaggar explain<\/h2>\n

A number of tragic events in recent times have demonstrated the critical need for good governance, compliance and safety in the built environment. Quite simply, compliance can be the difference between the safe or non-safe occupation of built assets<\/a> from schools and residential dwellings to rail networks and highways. Therefore, ensuring public trust in our built environment is a foundation that the Construction Innovation Hub<\/a> seeks to establish through all aspects of our programme.<\/p>\n

Creating that confident relationship between our buildings, linear infrastructure and confidence of those who use them is essential. This connection needs a clear line-of-sight between our built assets and compliance against regulatory frameworks.<\/p>\n

Our information management projects and work with the UK BIM Alliance\/British Standards Institute has helped drive adoption of the UK BIM Framework supporting an accurate system of record also known as the \u201cgolden thread\u201d. Additionally, our Digital Estate project has been helping asset owners digitise their existing retained estate to support resilience and statutory compliance.<\/p>\n

Building safety in the built environment<\/h3>\n

This is all playing out in a UK regulatory landscape that is becoming increasingly multifaceted, with the Building Safety Bill and the new Building Safety Regulator to consider in addition to existing building safety and Building Regulations, fire safety and emergency services enforcing authorities. Warranting full compliance with these requirements is more challenging for construction organisations than ever before. We are witnessing not just a growing number of regulations, requirements and standards but also the increasing need for auditability in all aspects of compliance checking.<\/p>\n

To support these drivers for change, The Hub has partnered up with Cardiff University and its Digital Compliance (D-COM) Network to develop a \u201cdigital compliance ecosystem\u201d to support construction firms in piloting the complex regulatory landscape with better ease and certainty supported by the digitisation of the regulatory compliance process.<\/p>\n

How digitalisation will increase safety in the built environment<\/h3>\n

The digital ecosystem will integrate and make more accessible the web of tools and data sources that firms must use as part of the compliance process. As well as driving greater and more consistent levels of compliance, the new digital ecosystem should also help to reduce costs and administrative burdens for construction businesses.<\/p>\n

Digitisation of compliance processes<\/a> will bring wider tangible benefits, including:<\/p>\n