The national standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods.
Types of Building for Life assessment
Anybody with an interest in a proposed or completed housing development can do an informal assessment, but you must use a Building for Life assessor if a formal assessment is required.
Informal assessments
Anybody can use Building for Life to do an informal assessment of a proposed or completed housing development.
For example, a design team can do an informal assessment of their development to demonstrate the quality of their proposal, or to prepare for a formal assessment as part of a planning or funding application. Informal assessments can be used as part of community consultations and can form the basis for a scheme's design and access statement.
Doing an informal Building for Life assessment is a three step process:
- Understand the 20 criteria
Delivering great places to live explains the 20 Building for Life criteria in detail - Apply the criteria to your scheme
Evaluating housing proposals step by step shows which evidence you need to score your assessment - Score your scheme
The Building for Life assessment exercise helps your score and provide evidence for your assessment.
Formal assessments
Formal assessments might be done as part of a planning application or funding bid and can only be done by a Building for Life assessor.
Formal assessments use the same criteria as informal assessments but are endorsed by Building for Life. They must be:
- completed and submitted by a Building for Life assessor
- registered with Building for Life on completion
- conducted under the agreed process and the assessors’ code of conduct (which governs impartiality and conflicts of interest)
- made available for review by the Building for Life partnership.
If you want a formal assessment, please contact your local planning authority to see if they have a trained Building for Life assessor.
