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Development fact sheet

3.4 Accessible housing

Contents

Accessible housing

Accessible housing

The minimum standards now required by Part M of Building Regulations aim to help occupants cope with reduced mobility, and allow disabled people to visit and use the principal storey of a dwelling.

The Code of Practice encourages developers to design and provide accessible housing, and recommends the adoption of Lifetime Homes standards. The Lifetime Homes standards go a little further than Building Regulations in incorporating elements of adaptability and flexibility to achieve accessible designs.

The Code of Practice makes the following recommendations for new housing with a ground floor entrance or accessed by a lift:

• entrances to dwellings should, wherever possible, have a level or gently sloped approach and flush thresholds
• where a dwelling is accessed by lift, the lift should be accessible to wheelchair users, and have accessible controls
• a toilet and at least one habitable room at entrance level
  
• door widths and circulation spaces suitable for wheelchair manoeuvre
  
• for dwellings of more than one storey or level, a staircase designed to allow for installation of a stairlift
  
• switches and sockets at appropriate heights from floor level.
  

Conversions and alterations should also be designed to conform as far as is practicable to these standards.

For further details, see 6.22 Dwellings.

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