Parapets in London

From the research I've done, I found that there's a law in London that says modern roofs must have a parapet (or wall) that's at least 30" high, to prevent anyone from falling off accidentally.

Now, in looking at some pictures of a council estate in Roehampton, there doesn't appear to be such a safety wall. Could be an illusion, I suppose, but I'm just not seeing it. I know I've seen episodes of Torchwood (which, granted, are in Cardiff, not London, but presumably the laws would be similar) where someone is up on a roof and there's no railing or parapet of any kind.

So I'm a bit confused. How likely is it that a council estate building would have a parapet around the edge of the roof? Under what circumstances (if any) might it not have one?

I ask because I need to throw my main character from the roof and if there's a parapet, that's going to make my job much harder.

@Sarpedon: Thanks, but unfortunately, it's a real building and it's modern, therefore built long after the law was passed in the 18th century. Not sure if the estate would be outside the city limits or not, though. It's in Roehampton, in the borough of Wandsworth.

@Steve: That's interesting. So some places do have differing regulations. I wonder if I could get away with a much lower parapet, then, which she could stumble over when pushed. Thanks for the input.

@Theo: Thanks for finding that! I had to find a conversion calculator to translate mm into inches, and it looks like 43". That's definitely too high to stumble over. Guess I need to move this discussion to the sandbox, now, to get help in finding a way to throw her off the roof.

Stlight said:

Not hard, push her up againstthe parapet, give her a shove about the shoulders and bob's your uncle, over she goes.

Click to expand...

Thanks, but unfortunately, it's not that easy. The dude she's struggling with doesn't deliberately push her over, it needs to be an accident. And she can't tumble head first, she has to be able to grab onto the ledge, so she doesn't die.

I just couldn't picture her being able to grab the ledge if she went over head first. Her head and shoulders would go over, and if she grabbed the edge, she'd end up somersaulting and twisting her arms . . . at least, as near as I can imagine it. Never actually watched someone fall off a building before, so it's hard to picture in my head. Maybe I'll have to get an action figure and push it off the edge of my dresser, just to see what happens.