Can Building Control over-ride planning permission?

[Bert Coules]

I secured planning permission for a rear extension to my bungalow, which is now built. The new back door opens outwards and is clearly shown as such on the submitted plans.

I haven't yet installed the steps from this back door down to garden/patio level (and for this reason haven't yet secured a completion certificate) but I'm now ready to build them.

My understanding (which might of course be wrong) is that descending steps should not begin immediately outside an outward-opening door: there has to be a level area of a specific depth first.

But... the plans which have been passed *do* show steps down from the threshold of the door. Leaving aside the question of whether or not this is actually sensible or desirable, does the fact that the plans have been accepted mean that I could build the steps like that if I chose to do so? Or would Building Control refuse to sign off the work?

Many thanks.

[spuorgelgoog]

Building Control and Planning Permission are two completely different things in law and the relevant departments often don't talk to each other.

How many steps - if it's a flight they'll probably pick up on it, if it's only a couple of steps to the garden they might not.

Owain

[GB]

Aren't these two completely separate tests, and you have to pass both?

When we submitted plans for a garage conversion, we submitted them first to planning. Having obtained that, we submitted the plans to BC, who approved them, with minor alterations that did not bother the planners. If you build to plans approved by both, you ought to be in the clear, even if the plans ought not to have been approved by one or the other.

[Bert Coules]

Owain,

The floors are set unusually high above the basic ground level: the plans show three steps, with the topmost one being one riser height below the interior floor. That's to say four risers have to be negotiated to get inside the house.

GB,

That's a good point. My recollection now is that plans were submitted to both planning and building control; I'll check back through the files and see if I'm right.

I don't necessarily want to begin the steps directly from the threshold, but the layout of the garden at that point does make a sizeable level area tricky to fit.

[GB]

The steps from our kitchen into the side passage are like that, although they are only 3 risers high. It feels quite safe, without a handrail. With four risers, you may feel much happier with a handrail.

Put in a right angle turn?

[Harry Bloomfield, Esq.]

Bert Coules explained :

Would four steps mean going the steps to grab the door handle, pulling the door open and having to reverse down the steps whilst pulling? Seems wrong to me.

[GB]

Most doors open inwards.

[Bert Coules]

Yes, or standing one step down, reaching up to open the door, then making slightly less of a reverse descent.

Me too, hence (presumably) the building reg requirement of a sort of outside landing deep enough to allow the door to be opened while the opener remains on the same level. Tricky to arrange in my case, though - to the extent that I'm beginning to wonder about replacing the (uPVC) door with an inward-opening one.

[Bert Coules]

Unfortunately, the space available for a ninety degree turn is extremely limited. It might turn out to be necessary to replace the door with an inward opening one which would permit an immediate flight of steps.

[Robin]

The OP specified back door and IME very many of them open outwards.

[dennis]

Planning is appearance, suitability for the area and proper use. If you need planning then you can't start to build without satisfying them. They can have the building demolished if you do build without permission. Some things don't need permission BTW.

Building control is about structural safety, insulation, etc. You don't need approval to start but if you don't meet the standards you may have to rectify it.

In most councils they don't really talk to each other.

Quite often the two can conflict like planning say you have to have a type of window and building control will say it doesn't comply.

As for the steps you will just have to ask building control, planning won't care. Maybe fit a panic bolt to it and call it an escape route?

[Andrew]

Only in this country.

[Bert Coules]

Ingenious, but I do need it to be a regular back door. And while I could always remove the panic bolt after the completion certificate had been issued, I do see the sense of the regulation about having a level space outside the door. I must check and see if there's a specified depth.

[Roger Hayter]

Throughout the Northern provinces of this land in the morning you will see women cleaning the front steps of their houses leading down to the pavement, almost never with a landing at the top. What they all have in common is that the front doors open inwards. Is this not feasible in your situation, it would make things so much simpler? (I don't know if building control still want a flat area for an inward opening door, nothing would surprise me.)

[Bert Coules]

Thanks for the thought. Yes, as I posted above, I have considered this. It would be annoying, though, to have to replace a comparatively new door (it being, sadly, quite impractical simply to reverse the existing one).

[spuorgelgoog]

Could you swap it with the front door?

At least until the inspector has gone ...

Owain

[charles]

Outward opening doors are a "good thing" in the event of fire.

[Brian Gaff]

Near me there is a listed building used by a bank. there have been numerous complaints about people falling in or out of this door due to the narrow top step. Its on a busy corner footway. However nobody can do anything it seems as its a listed building. There is a wheelchair ramp round the back but its not well known about as one has to use an intercom to tell them you want to come in that way. I mean it is a bank after all! Brian

[Bert Coules]

Many thanks for all the latest replies.

I've been trying to find the exact building regulation governing step access to outward-opening garden doors but for some reason I can't now track it down. Google searches seem to throw up a bewildering array of possibilities none of which address this particular point (or if they do, the info is so well-buried as to be for all intents and purposes invisible).

If anyone can point me towards a straightforward explanation of the situation and what needs to be done, I'd be very grateful. Thanks.

[Steve Walker]

It has its advantages. My parents front door opens inwards, but the porch door opens outwards (no choice as there isn't enough space to open it inwards while you are in the porch). For a while a new milkman kept putting the bottles on the step, making it impossible to get out in the morning! Not a problem I and my wife have ever had with an inward opening door.

SteveW