Correspondence on Evaluation by Proof Testing of a T-Beam Bridge Without Drawings by Dr. B. Bakht an

Mr D. K. Doran (F) It has been my privilege for the past 7 years to chair the two Institution task groups working on this topic. One of the benefits of being Chairman is that one does not have to do too much work. What cannot be delegated, of course, is responsibility, and I accept that. Tonight I should like to pay public tribute to the hard work of the two task groups which have valiantly laboured to produce these reports, and in particular tonight’s speakers for putting together, in fairly short order, our papers for this evening. Mr. D.K. Doran

The Chairman What has been done with the building now that Expo has finished? I understood, at the beginning, thathe buildings were to be folded up and taken away and used elsewhere. What is the current situation?

As members with sufficiently long memories will recall, the Government’s proposals for ‘Approved Persons’ were extensively debated 12 years ago; procedures for assessing candidates and maintaining a register were formulated jointly with the Institution of Civil Engineers and, at that time, it was hoped that there would be rapid progress towards final approval by Government. The underlying assumption (which still applies) was that ‘Approved Inspectors’ (AIS), when appointed, had to approve all Building Regulations, whereas ‘Approved Persons’ (APs) would specifically address structural requirements. While they therefore had to understand the Building Regulations sufficiently to know the context within which structural adequacy was determined, there was no need fully to understand (or indeed be responsible for) other aspects of the Regulations. Stefan B. Tietz