Post Brexit - Why are we still permitting CENELEC etc to influence how we govern our own engineering affairs?

The problem is of course that the fixed wiring in buildings does not get replaced the same pace as committees that meet however many time a year can change their documents, and just because hardware like computers seem to get replaced  more frequently than shirts, does not mean that it is necessary or desirable for major constructions to be periodically rebuilt at a similar pace.
Assuming we do not find the potential WWIII currently raging actually reaches here, it is likely that most of our current building stock, much of which predates the last world war, and in many cases its ageing wiring, certainly the street cabling, will remain in service for the foreseeable future.

Consider there are whole housing estates from pre 1970 or so where almost every house has the original 2 core lighting wiring still in use, and there is nothing wrong with it, but what to do with it is not really captured in the official paperwork - it is as if from a BS 7671 point of view it does not exist. Which is a pity, because it very much does and local approaches vary wildly.

I wont even mention the more recent areas of tension in the form of sockets not backed by RCDs and plastic metal  consumer units.

The useful life for a set of current  wiring regs is measured in few years, when for wiring at least it is at least a decade and in many cases, several decades to half a century. Once we get  to about 2060 and 100 years of PVC insulated wiring, it will need to become pretty much static, as unless overloaded, we can be sure that it lasts more or less for ever.

This mismatch of pace puts an ever-increasing and  unsatisfactory  tension between what is on paper and what is out there "in the field" in all but the newest buildings.  There is a danger then that the regs become a distracting irrelevance, as most real wiring is much older than the current set of rules, and we need to avoid that, by addressing the problem of existing kit built to previous versions,  properly, where it belongs, in the regs.

Mike.

The problem is of course that the fixed wiring in buildings does not get replaced the same pace as committees that meet however many time a year can change their documents, and just because hardware like computers seem to get replaced  more frequently than shirts, does not mean that it is necessary or desirable for major constructions to be periodically rebuilt at a similar pace.
Assuming we do not find the potential WWIII currently raging actually reaches here, it is likely that most of our current building stock, much of which predates the last world war, and in many cases its ageing wiring, certainly the street cabling, will remain in service for the foreseeable future.

Consider there are whole housing estates from pre 1970 or so where almost every house has the original 2 core lighting wiring still in use, and there is nothing wrong with it, but what to do with it is not really captured in the official paperwork - it is as if from a BS 7671 point of view it does not exist. Which is a pity, because it very much does and local approaches vary wildly.

I wont even mention the more recent areas of tension in the form of sockets not backed by RCDs and plastic metal  consumer units.

The useful life for a set of current  wiring regs is measured in few years, when for wiring at least it is at least a decade and in many cases, several decades to half a century. Once we get  to about 2060 and 100 years of PVC insulated wiring, it will need to become pretty much static, as unless overloaded, we can be sure that it lasts more or less for ever.

This mismatch of pace puts an ever-increasing and  unsatisfactory  tension between what is on paper and what is out there "in the field" in all but the newest buildings.  There is a danger then that the regs become a distracting irrelevance, as most real wiring is much older than the current set of rules, and we need to avoid that, by addressing the problem of existing kit built to previous versions,  properly, where it belongs, in the regs.

Mike.