HISTORY OF BUILDING CONTROL

Building Control legislation has a very long history. In fact, the earliest recorded building regulation dates back almost 4,000 years!

Hammurabi’s code of laws from ancient Babylon in the year 1780 B.C. is the earliest known example of a ruler proclaiming publicly to his people an entire body of laws in order that all might read and know what was required of them. The code was carved upon a black stone monument 2.4 metres high for public view.

Law 229 of this code states;

“If a builder build a house for some one, and does not construct it properly, and the house which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death.”

Since then, building legislation has tended to be introduced as a result of major disasters or public outcry. The regulations have generally been more detailed and the punishment not quite so severe as that proclaimed by King Hammurabi, but the underlying principle of accountability has remained in order to make buildings safe and healthy places.

London during the plague of the 17th Century was disease ridden, with raw sewage flowing through the streets. Timber buildings were tightly packed, and the Great Fire in 1666 destroyed approximately 13,200 buildings. As a result, The London Re-Building Act of 1667 was introduced with regulations to ensure such an incident could not happen again.

Masonry construction was required for new buildings, and the city was re-built in accordance with plans laid down by Christopher Wren and overseen by the academic and scientist Robert Hooke (who co-incidentally was born and bred in Freshwater) with streets set out to ensure sufficient space was maintained between buildings to prevent rapid fire spread.

The rest of the country remained un-regulated, however, and the squalor and slums that developed to house workers of the industrial revolution were a disgrace. The Public Health Act of 1875 was instrumental in changing this, as it gave local authorities powers to create building bye-laws to control building construction and sanitation in order to safeguard health.

Although there were “model bye-laws” to assist Local Authorities in making their own bye-laws, large cities adapted these standards to suit there own particular ideas on Health & Safety. This led to a variety of differing requirements and even a new Public Health Act in 1936 still left a wide variation of requirements from one Council to another.

In an effort to achieve uniformity and enable the requirements to be readily amended to take into account advances in technology, the Public Health Act 1961 was introduced. This Act made radical changes to the law relating to building control as it removed from local authorities the power to make building bye-laws. The new procedure empowered the Government to make national Building Regulations.

The first regulations were those of 1965 that came into operation on the 1st February 1966. There were many amendments to these regulations, often following disasters such as Roman Point and Summerland.

In 1985 a major overhaul took place following the introduction of the 1984 Building Act. This opened up competition in the field of Building Control, and developers were given the option to use the services of the local authority or an Approved Inspector. Local Authority Building Control responded successfully by becoming more commercially aware and customer focused.

Building Control legislation has come a long way since its inception in ancient Mesopotamia, and it continues to evolve in response to national and global issues in order to protect present and future generations.