The national standard for well-designed homes and neighbourhoods.
HCA consultation about Building for Life
24 March 2010
The Homes and Communities Agency (HCA) are consulting on their design and sustainability core standards. Their consultation includes proposals for Building for Life. These build on the legacy standards the HCA adopted from English Partnerships and the Housing Corporation.
CABE and the HCA are also discussing setting up a framework whereby suitable individuals within HCA development partner organisations could become accredited Building for Life (BfL) assessors and carry out BfL assessments as part of the HCA core standard process.
Suitable candidates once accredited would have to complete assessments on the basis of the assessors’ Code of Conduct. This governs impartiality and conflicts of interest.
The current edition of the Code of Conduct is drafted specifically for assessors working in local planning authorities, because to date the programme of training and accreditation has solely focussed on this group.
The Code will be revised as the offer to train and accredit assessors is extended to include a wider group. Therefore a number of the clauses included in this edition of the Code will be redrafted, whereas others may not be considered relevant or applicable to certain groups.
One of the key aims of the planned revisions to the Code will be to facilitate its implementation within any standards framework put in place by the HCA.
