Sheltered housing definition
Approved document B, Fire Safety, Volume 2, Buildings other than dwellinghouses (2019 edition), suggests that sheltered housing:
'Includes two or more dwellings in the same building or on adjacent sites, designed
and constructed as residential accommodation for vulnerable or elderly people who receive, or will receive, a support service.'
The previous edition of the approved document gave a slightly different definition, suggesting that sheltered housing included:
where those dwellings are, in each case, designed and constructed for the purpose of providing residential accommodation for vulnerable or elderly people who receive, or who are to receive, a support service.
The Scottish Building Standards, Part I. Technical Handbook – Domestic, Appendix A Defined Terms, defines a sheltered housing complex as:
where those dwellings are, in each case, designed and constructed for the purpose of providing residential accommodation for people who receive, or who are to receive, a support service; and, for these purposes, “support service” has the same meaning as in the Regulation of Care (Scotland) Act 2001.’
[edit] Related articles on Designing Buildings
- Apartment.
- Bungalow.
- Care Standards Act 2000.
- Core and cluster accommodation.
- Curtilage.
- Definition of institution.
- Dwellinghouse.
- Flat definition.
- Hostel.
- Household.
- Residential definition.
- Room for residential purposes.
- Shop definition.
- Specialist accommodation for older people.
- Supported housing.
- Terraced house.
- Types of building.
- Use class.
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