All construction works fall under CDM2015.

Construction Work means the carrying out of any building, civil engineering or engineering construction work and includes many tasks ranging from simple activities such as redecoration and maintenace opertaions up to more complication activiites such as building and demolition works.

A Principal Designer must be appointed by the client to control the pre-construction phase on all construction projects which involve or are likely to involve more than one contractor.

The Principal Designer should be appointed in writing.

If you do not comply with CDM 2015, you are likely to be failing to influence the management of health and safety on your project. This means that your project could be putting workers and others at risk of harm, and that the finished structure may not achieve good standards and be value for money.

If you don’t appoint a principal designer or principal contractor you will be responsible for the things that they should have done.

Serious breaches of health and safety legislation on your construction project could result in construction work being stopped by HSE or your local authority and additional work may be needed to put things right. In the most serious circumstances, you could be prosecuted.

The Principal Designer should be appointed as early as possible so they can help you gather information about the project and ensure that the designers have done all they can to check that it can be built safely.

The Principal Designer must be a designer but does not have to be a member of the project design team actively designing the works.

In addition, the Principal Designer must have the right mix of skills, knowledge, experience and (if an organisation) organisational capability to allow them to carry out all of the functions and responsibilities of a Principal Designer for the project in hand.

On a domestic client project where the domestic client does not appoint a principal designer, the role of the principal designer must be carried out by the designer in control of the pre-construction phase.

On a commercial client project where the commercial client does not appoint a principal designer, the role of the principal designer defaults to the Client who becomes legally responsible for the duties of the Principal Designer along with their Client duties.

The Principal Desginer Adviser is not a statutory role i.e. the role is not required under the CDM2015 Regulations.  However, in some circumstances those appointed as the Princpal Designer may need help and assistance with certain elements of the role such as pre-constrution information, design risk management, etc and to obtain this assistance they themselves appoint a Principal Designer Adviser.