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Building Control.
LABC has a web site here and this page lists 10 good reasons for building control.
But it is one of those services government allowed to privatise.
Some say, the privateers cherry pick the best jobs leaving local authorities those jobs that are hard to fulfill for the fee.
That results in the privateers being able to offer better money and poaching many inspectors from local authorities.
In my experience, the privateers often bundle up building control and structural warranty insurance into one package. They wear two hats. Building better and wriggling out of a future insurance claim.
I find that the privateers rarely come to site, but worse: they show no flexibility to recognise that a situation on site can be built better than the architect envisaged on the drawing board months earlier.
When I have tried to use my initiative, for instance at the bottom of the dig for an underpin if I find the soil is quite different to what was expected, and I try to do a better job, if I call in the inspector to see it his response is to write a report that I am not building to the drawing - which might have become impossible given what we found.
The report means if the client claims on his structural warranty, he will be turned down because of the discrepancy.
But you cannot stop having excavated an underpin for 2 months while the architect is brought back and draws a new specification. The house might fall down.
Whereas the local authority inspector is much more likely to agree that the method on the drawing clearly won't work and agree the initiative to do a better job.
I find local authorities useful sometimes but privateers not on your side at all.
Do clients change their minds as the build progresses? Every day. You don't want to be tied to the drawings over every unimportant detail or else your very expensive warranty has very little cover left.
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When big changes were on the way, I saved a link to an article (March 2023) about them
here.
18 months later, projects not registered with a building control body before October 2023 have a very, very different regime to deal with.
The Grenfell Tower inquiry led to changes in law.
Amongst those, building control must now file away evidence about who did what and how for use in court should the client or developer be prosecuted for a failing.
Everyone with any responsibility has new duties and responsibilities now. I explain them all as best I can here.
Someone is the Principal Designer. By default, it will be the architect if no one else is appointed. I explain the changes to architects here.
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The page about the new duties and responsibilities includes a briefing by government to building control bodies. From that, is this:
On the other page I reproduce it in full. Here I only highlight the point I wish to make, which is that building control is now regulated and inspected.
Changes to the building control process …. and wider changes to procedural building regulations applying to buildings in England.
These regulations deliver the recommendations set out by Dame Judith Hackitt in her Building a Safer Future report and cover the technical detail underpinning the new, more stringent regime for the design and construction of ...... all buildings and the creation of a regulated building control profession.
the Building Safety Regulator ("the Regulator"). (BSR).
The Building Regulations ...... 2023 make changes to building regulations that will apply to all building work, to raise standards across the built environment. Legal responsibilities will be placed on those who commission building work, participate in the design and construction process and carry out the building control function, to make sure building work is compliant with building regulations.
The Building ...... Regulations 2023, ...... the new building control regime. This will introduce changes to improve accountability and competence, such as establishing a regulated building control profession......
Big questions remain about private Building Control Bodies who, so far, seem oblivious to their new duties.
But note the phrase in red, above.
If you instruct a private building control body, and they fail to carry out their new duties and something goes wrong, it looks like the client or developer will end up in court and face an unlimited fine.
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