Image courtesy of Interiordezine.com
With our move to higher density living and our interest in small gardens the likelihood of having a planter box on an apartment balcony is by no means remote!
Imagine in the photo above you added a planter box that was that is say 700 high above the floor of the balcony. The balcony is constructed such that you can fall more than 4m from the floor to the ground level below. Therefore the climb-ability restrictions in Clause D2.16 of the BCA apply. These restrict elements of the balustrade which would facilitate climbing to be located between 150 and 760 above the floor.
So the height of our planter box clearly falls in the range considered to be climbable. But is it part of the barrier? You can just imagine a young child climbing up and ….. over! But is it the building surveyor’s problem? It’s a fixture, loose garden furniture if you like! Clearly not something that forms part of the building works that require approval, but it definitely creates a safety problem.
Whilst it’s beyond the scope of this blog post to identify whether any liability might arise through the common law, Occupational Health and Safety etc etc it’s far more relevant that the real issue is access of a child to the balcony needs to be closely supervised! Maybe the real issue is not that there is or is not an anomaly in the Building Regulations for this or any other issue it’s the hard reality that no regulation will ever relieve the loss and suffering of a parent with the death of a small child due to a fall from the balcony.
Tags: balustrade, BCA, Building Regulations