There is excitement and much anticipation of a new building being opened for any organisation! and this building will invariably include a water system that will require safe operation when occupied.
To ensure the safe operation of the water system the inherent risk associated with the system should be as low as reasonably practicable [ALARP] having been designed, installed and commissioned properly. In recent years there has been publicity and media coverage of new buildings where the water systems have caused illness, harm and deaths to some of the occupants.
The Water Safety Group [WSG] for an organisation has a responsibility to review and feedback on proposed designs of buildings and water systems and approve these designs and supporting processes for the safe construction of the building and water systems. The Project Manager should be an active member of the WSG providing these designs and co-ordinating feedback to the principal designer.
The WSG being this multidisciplinary group of professionals with a collective responsibility for water safety, as such the reviews should be completed by all members of the WSG including the proposed users / occupants of the building and an Authorising Engineer Water [AEW].
Under the CDM Regulations, the responsibility for water safety [including all other H&S issues] sits with the Principal Designer who is required to plan, manage and co-ordinate the planning and design work and the Principal Contractor is required to plan, manage and co-ordinate the construction work.
At each stage of a project the design and specification should be reviewed by the WSG members, with sufficient time factored in to the project plan for such feedback to be sought, collated and analysed.
Design reviews may consider:
- Design quality;
- Design risk management;
- Risks (other than health and safety risks) associated with the design, such as the use of innovative components, long lead time items and non-standard elements of the design;
- Design co-ordination;
- Compliance with the project specification, which should be amended if necessary;
- Compliance with procedures laid out in project execution plan, which should be amended if necessary;
- Compliance with relevant legislation, regulations (in particular the building regulations), Guidance documents [i.e. ACoP L8, HTM’s], published British Standards and other recognised industry related guides;
- Contingency plans;
- Co-ordination and integration of different elements or packages of the design;
- The need for mock-ups, samples, tests and inspections (in the later stages of the design process it may be appropriate to visit the premises of specialist contractors or suppliers to assess samples, mock-ups and tests);
- Sustainability issues, such as: compliance with any existing client policies or targets, site selection, availability of transport, the local availability of resources and services, the local infrastructure, local ecology, landscape, energy use and energy source, flexibility and durability, waste and water management, material selection, recycling, pollution, resilience to climate change, dismantling and demolition or re-use;
- Assessment of protocols for submitting design information (for example building information modelling (BIM) protocols);
Following a design review, the principal designer will generally compile comments received and instruct the consultant team to amend or develop the design as necessary.
In some circumstances it may be appropriate to commission design reviews from independent client advisers or from specialist design review organisations.
On public sector projects, the government requires that gateway reviews are carried out at key points during the development of the project. Gateway reviews are independent peer reviews carried out by a review team on behalf of the senior responsible owner. The review team then prepare a confidential review report for the senior responsible owner.
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