Welsh Building Regulations — sanitary/access (AD G, AD M; no Part T)

In brief

In Wales, building regulations require adequate and suitable toilets and handwashing but do not require separate-sex toilets; separate-sex provision in workplaces comes instead from regulation 20 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 (WHSWR). Building regulations are devolved to Wales, which maintains its own Approved Documents under the shared Building Regulations 2010 (SI 2010/2214), Schedule 1, and amends Schedule 1 through Wales-only SIs. Requirement G4 (Schedule 1 Part G) requires 'adequate and suitable sanitary conveniences' and 'adequate hand washing facilities', plus separation from food-preparation areas. It does not mandate sex-separated provision. The provision that matters is WHSWR 1992 reg 20: separate-sex workplace provision is a health-and-safety matter, not building control. Regulation 20(2)(c) requires that 'separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.' It extends to England, Wales and Scotland (Great Britain-wide); Northern Ireland has separate, mirroring instruments. Wales has no Part T equivalent. Part T was inserted into Schedule 1 by an England-only amendment (SI 2024/645), in force on 1 October 2024 with full enforcement from 1 April 2025. Both Welsh amending SIs since then, SI 2024/742 (care-home fire suppression) and SI 2025/377 (digital infrastructure), touch neither G4 nor toilets. This is live, contested territory rather than settled: a Senedd petition ('Reinstate single-sex toilet provision in educational settings', closed 2 March 2026) and a June 2026 EHRC Code Statement of Opinion (OPIN-2026-0519) are both active. BS 6465, 'Sanitary installations', has four parts (1: scale of provision; 2: space requirements; 3: selection, installation and maintenance, current edition 2020; 4: public toilets). It is a design code, not a legal separation duty. The Welsh Approved Document G is headed '2010 edition incorporating 2010 and 2018 amendments — For use in Wales' and was last updated on 10 May 2023, materially older than England's current Approved Document G (reissued 'with 2024 amendments'). No 2024-2026 Welsh reissue was found.

Key provisions

• • Requirement G4 [framework] Sanitary conveniences and washing facilities (Welsh — • Requirement G4 [framework] Sanitary conveniences and washing facilities (Welsh AD G)
• Requires adequate sanitary conveniences and washing facilities; does not specify — Requires adequate sanitary conveniences and washing facilities; does not specify single-sex separation or numbers (those sit in WHSWR reg 20 / BS 6465).
• Tactical: No Part T equivalent in Wales — the building-reg layer is silent on si — Tactical: No Part T equivalent in Wales — the building-reg layer is silent on single-sex. Distinguish from England, where Part T now requires separate single-sex provision.

When relevant

Advising on toilet/sanitary facilities for buildings in Wales. Wales has no Part T; AD G G4 covers sanitary conveniences but imposes no single-sex mandate. Especially relevant where a client assumes Part T is UK-wide (it is England-only). Keep the three layers distinct: building-reg (this record, Wales) ≠ workplace-welfare (WHSWR reg 20, GB-wide) ≠ equality law (EA 2010 and For Women Scotland; for services, the EHRC services Code 2026; for workplaces, EA 2010 Part 5 and the EHRC Employment Code, not the services Code).