This month (October) marks a decade since the government changed Part M of English Building Regulations to include two optional accessible housing design standards. Dr Marney Walker, a specialist consultant on inclusive and accessible housing design and an associate at the Centre for Accessible Environments, says that this revision had the potential to make huge social impact by creating greater numbers of accessible homes that meet the needs of disabled and older people, but asks has it produced the results needed?
As an occupational therapist specialising in advising on accessible and inclusive design of housing, the publication of the Approved Document M: Volume 1: accessible and adaptable dwellings (Part M) in 2015, offered the potential to be a useful lever to ensure that housing is flexible and adaptable to a diverse range of physical abilities.
As a new regulation, it proposed three dwelling categories (M4: Category 1 as mandatory) and two optional categories (M4: Category 2: accessible and adaptable and M4: Category 3: wheelchair accessible). These new categories had the potential to improve the design of housing that could address the lack of wheelchair accessible housing and accommodate the changing needs of families throughout a lifetime.
Unfortunately, as these optional categories are not mandatory by default, M4(2) and M4(3) standard housing has only been achieved in some new build housing. Ten years on, it has therefore had much less impact than we had hoped.
Dr. Marney Walker
Before Part M
In the years leading up to the new 2015 Approved Document M (Part M) and in the absence of regulations, commissioners and developers who were interested in delivering accessible and adaptable homes relied on guidance such as the Lifetime Homes Standards and the earlier editions of the Wheelchair Housing Design Guide.
Locally, planning departments also developed supplementary planning guidance for wheelchair accessible housing. This included the London Boroughs of Greenwich, Waltham Forest, and Camden, and Manchester and Essex. Written by housing occupational therapists who were actively involved in shaping the design of accessible and adaptable housing, their value lay in being directly informed by working with people in their own homes.
Their insight was informed by people with lived experience of a range of physical, sensory, and cognitive impairments and the barriers they encounter that impact on active engagement in everyday life, and access to the wider community.
Part M limitations & drawbacks
The Approved Document : Volume 1 : Accessible and adaptable dwellings (2015) came about as part of the government’s deregulation agenda. Jacquel Runnalls, a leading highly experienced housing occupational therapist, was able to contribute to the development of the document.
Despite her efforts to represent all the learning from working with individuals in their own homes, some compromises were inevitable. The document was still limited and did not, as hoped, remove Category 1 and require Category 2 as the minimum. The M4(3) space standards are less generous than some of the local wheelchair guidance used previously.
In the past ten years those of us who have been involved in conducting appraisals of planning application to ensure compliance with Category 2 and 3 when it is included as a planning condition, continue to encounter many challenges. We regularly find that the finer details have been misinterpreted or misunderstood. The technical detail and drawings are difficult to follow and understand.
Although compliance should be signed off by Building Control, Part M is only one of very many regulations, and our experience has been that few Building Control Officers have an in-depth understanding of the Part M requirements. Equally, most planners and developers continue to have limited understanding of the impact of inaccessible housing. A few local authorities employ specialist housing occupational therapists who bring an understanding of the implications of non-compliance to check housing during construction, but this is relatively rare.
The Habinteg Wheelchair Housing Design Guide (2018), also authored by leading occupational therapists (Kate Sheehan, Jacqui Smith and Jacquel Runnalls), goes some way to addressing misunderstandings by directly cross referencing to M4(3). The Habinteg Inclusive Housing Design Guide (2024) authored by Jacquel Runnalls, brings together all these lessons to provide the rationale for exceeding the minimum standards, together with detailed technical instructions on how to deliver homes that are future proofed and fit for purpose.
Potential improvements
The revised Part M had the potential to ensure that housing was future-proofed to meet the diverse needs of the population.
However, as M4(2) and M4(3) are only mandatory if set out in Local Plans, other than London, that requires 90% M4(2) and 10% M4(3) on all new build, there are still only a minority of local authorities that have set these as mandatory standards.
Despite the previous government’s announcement in 2022 of the intention to make M4(2) mandatory across England we are still waiting for this to be implemented. Our understanding is that the research commissioned to provide up-to-date data on space requirements for accessible housing, will provide the evidence to support the recommendations made in the IHDG. Unfortunately, we are still waiting for it to be published.
The impact of poor-quality housing on public health is well evidenced. The current government’s plans to increase delivery of housing is a perfect opportunity to make this happen.
About Dr Walker
Dr Marney Walker, a specialist consultant on inclusive and accessible housing design, is an associate at the Centre for Accessible Environments, part of Habinteg, which provides professional consultancy and training on accessible housing schemes, development and design. Find out more at https://cae.org.uk/our-services/housing-services/, or get in touch at info@cae.org.uk and 020 7822 8232.
This article was originally published in September 2025 edition of Inclusive Design magazine.
Top image: M4(2) accessible and adaptable and M4(3) wheelchair user council homes in Wandsworth, London