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23.11.28.
5 Deputy T.A. Coles of the Minister for the Environment regarding minimum standards in proposed new building developments (OQ.228/2023)
Will the Minister advise if all proposed new building developments will only receive planning and building permission if all toilets and bathrooms meet the minimum requirements set out in Building Bye-laws (Jersey) 2007, Technical Guidance Document: Part 8, and if not, why not?
Deputy J. Renouf (The Minister for the Environment):
I thank the Deputy for his indulgence in waiting for me to return. The requirements for planning permission and building permission are different. From a planning perspective there are no technical minimum requirements for toilets and bathrooms. This is just a building bye-laws regulation outlined, as Deputy Coles said, in the Technical Guidance Document: Part 8. The law states that reasonable provision must be made, and what is considered reasonable is assessed on a case-by-case basis. Technical guidance documents provide guidance on a number of the most common situations found in terms of toilets and bathrooms but there may be more than one solution that may be acceptable. There is the opportunity, for instance, to submit an access statement setting out the approach to inclusive design that will allow the building standards team to advise regarding the acceptability of a specific solution and whether it complies with the building bye-laws in instances where the technical guidance has not been followed.
3.14.1 Deputy T.A. Coles :
The new supplementary planning guidance allows for the smaller units of one-bedroom, one-person apartments to have a shower room which can be 2 square metres smaller than the required bathroom size. How does this work in relation to accessibility for those who might have mobility issues?
Deputy J. Renouf :
The supplemental planning guidance is the planning guidance for applications, it is not the building bye-laws. The aim with the supplementary planning guidance was to ensure that we had a full range of accommodation types available in the Island. The guidance in terms of bathrooms and shower rooms are minimum standards and can be varied according to what the developer feels is necessary for that accommodation that he is building.