Minimum Standards for House Building

[BRX]

Can you point me to where in the Building Regulations 2010 (as amended 2016) it says that step-free access to a dwelling is mandatory? The wording I can find says approaches to a dwelling can be stepped if the lie of the land prevents step free, and that the principle private entrance to a dwelling can be stepped up to 150mm if unavoidable.

Yes you are right you can avoid the requirement for non-stepped approaches on 'steeply sloping sites' and you can get away without a level threshold at the door if it's 'unavoidable'.

Like many aspects of the building regs, what's 'unavoidable' is a little bit subjective, and maybe some building control inspectors are more lax than they should be. But in my opinion there should not be many cases where it's genuinely 'unavoidable'. As for steeply sloping sites, it's true that this is a get-out in many cases, as the AD's definition of steep is only 1:15. On a plot with a steeper slope than that, it's certainly not the case that a step free access is necessarily impossible but yes it can be used to avoid the requirement.

(The requirements for buildings other than private dwellings are a bit stricter, largely without similar get-out clauses)