Principal Designer Role

Principal Designer 

A principal designer is an organisation or individual (on smaller projects) appointed by the client to take control of the pre-construction phase of any project involving more than one contractor. If your project is Notifiable and you think you need us to act on your behalf then please call us now for more information.
Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015

Our Approach

In liaison with the client and the principal contractor, the principal designer (PD) has an important role in influencing how the risks to health and safety should be managed and incorporated into the wider management of the project. Decisions about the design taken during the pre-construction phase can have a significant effect on whether the project is delivered in a way that secures health and safety. The PD role involves coordinating the work of others in the project team to ensure that significant and foreseeable risks are managed throughout the design process.

Comprehensive Services

Our principal designer services to clients include:

  • Assisting in the development of the initial brief
  • Planning, managing and monitoring the co-ordination of the pre-construction phase
  • Helping clients identify, obtain and collate pre-construction information
  • Providing pre-construction information to designers, principal contractor and contractors
  • Co-ordinating significant health and safety issues with the design team through to resolution
  • Ensuring that designers co-operate with each other and comply with CDM 2015
  • Attending design review meetings
  • Liaising with the principal contractor for the duration of our appointment
  • Supporting the principal contractor in seeking and obtaining responses to health and safety queries from designers
  • Agreeing a format and compiling the statutory health and safety file for formal handover at project completion
  • Communicating our progress and raising awareness of potential health and safety issues
  • Pre-construction

CDM 2015 requires a client to identify and obtain pre-construction information. We offer support to do this and will also help collate the information for issue to the designers and the principal contractor for the construction phase.

Adding Value

In addition to our CDM 2015 statutory duties as principal designer, we can also:

  • Provide a dedicated CDM 2015 consultant to each project, for the duration of each project
  • Ensure RIDDOR investigations are carried out and appropriate reporting is undertaken. Where necessary, we will intervene to ensure RIDDOR compliance to protect our clients’ interests
  • Arbitrate on client/principal contractor CDM and construction health and safety disputes
  • Undertake on-site CDM compliance inspections and report to our client
  • Deal with telephone and email queries within 24 hours
  • Provide telephone support to clients with regard to CDM 2015 and construction health and safety matters

Interested in our services? We’re here to help!

We want to know your needs exactly so that we can provide the perfect solution. Let us know what you want and we’ll do our best to help. 
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