BUILDING CONTROL CONSULTATIONS
The Future of Building Control
The Department for Communities and Local Government have recently published a consultation document on proposals for the future development of the Building Control System. The consultation paper can be found at www.communities.gov.uk/futurebuildingcontrol and has been put together with the input of building control managers and other stakeholders. The consultation covers five principle areas:
- developing a vision for building control
- establishing a better approach to the way we deliver regulations and guidance
- modernising inspection and enforcement
- providing alternative routes to compliance
- enabling improved performance and capacity
The proposals are mainly practical actions to help the system run more smoothly and do not have a direct impact on the householder.However, there is one issue which is likely to generate public interest and the department wish to generate as much feedback as possible.
The proposal is to stop the use of Building Notices for major works like new buildings, extensions and conversions. This would mean that in future these types of projects could only be submitted with Full Plans.
This change would:
- Improve consumer protection bt deterring cowboy builders and catching problems early
- Improve compliance with building regulations by giving building control more information to go on
- Cause no additional delay. As now, a job could still be started, at the applicants own risk, within 2 days of the application being submitted
However, it would also mean that plans and detailed information would have to be provided at the outset for major projects.
In order to obtain public feedback on this issue a mini-survey is available which should only take a few minutes to complete. The link to the survey is http://minibuildingcontrolsurvey.communities.gov.uk/ and it will be available until 10 June 2008.
