Stricter Regulations On New Builds

Stampdutyhol

Hi Everyone,

After a disastrous 15 months in our Gentoo Homes new build in Northumberland we felt obliged to create a petition to stop it happening to other people.

My UK parliament petition has just been published for stricter regulations on new build houses! Please sign if you agree. 

The petition is 637649 or type into google:

Introduce stricter regulations and inspections for new build homes

Thanks

Section62

The inspection at stages in the build you refer to is already covered by the building regulations - you could strengthen your position by altering that to refer to better enforcement of (existing) building regulations rather than having a new regulatory regime (which is what the petition implies).

Building Regulations are currently managed and enforced by a combination of local authority and private building control organisations.  It won't ever be transferred to an "independent Government body" - not least because a new [national] body would be expensive to set up and operate, and those costs would be passed on in the form of increased prices of new build homes.

Ineffective and poorly enforced Building Regulations was a big theme in the Grenfell disaster and subsequent inquiries. You could strengthen your position by doing some research on this and showing the linkage between poor standards in refurbuishment/newbuild of great big blocks of flats, and the 'hidden' issues which are being built-in every day in the tiny boxes springing up around every town and village.

Also, have a look at what the The New Homes Ombudsman Service does, and the weaknesses in that system (e.g. the limitations in scope)....

https://www.nhos.org.uk/

If you get enough signatures for a government response, the response to the current wording is likely to be along the lines that all this is being done already and the government is making sure standards improve, whilst not introducing regulations/processes which reduce the number of new homes being built and/or increasing the affordability of first homes.

Our national desire for lots of new houses comes much higher up the agenda than making sure they are good quality.  And that won't change anytime soon.

Dustyevsky

Section62 said:

Our national desire for lots of new houses comes much higher up the agenda than making sure they are good quality. 

But not too many, mind, or the huge gravy train would hit the buffers!

ProDave

The issues with new builds appears to be two fold.  Firstly most builders don't care about getting the details right, they just want to build as quick and cheap as possible. as long as the finished item looks okay they don't care if they forget a few bits like insulation.  And the second problem is on new build estates only 1 in 10 houses are actually inspected by building control.

I read somewhere that is changing and all houses will have to be inspected by building control. Not sure when that starts or if it has already started.

It is something of a personal niggle of mine that even now we are not building houses anything like as good as we need to be.  We should be aiming now for every new house to be built to something like passive house standards.

Dustyevsky

ProDave said:

  We should be aiming now for every new house to be built to something like passive house standards.

Which gives the lie to the idea we're seriously pursuing the goal of net zero, not that I would from a personal POV.

ComicGeek

The reality is that without someone there all day watching what is being installed there will be opportunities for workers to get things wrong, either deliberately or by mistake. New builds are becoming increasingly more complicated, and there are so many things that need to be done correctly - that's coupled with a reduction in experience on sites, and developers unwilling to pay for it.

The latest building regulation changes (Part L 2021) require builders to take photos of every key junction for every plot to prove that it's been built correctly. That still requires checking by building control, as a bit pointless if just left until it's all finished before identifying an issue with the ground floor edge insulation for example. Just another administrative burden on those who are doing it properly - those looking to cut corners will no doubt find ways of circumventing this.

ProDave said:

It is something of a personal niggle of mine that even now we are not building houses anything like as good as we need to be.  We should be aiming now for every new house to be built to something like passive house standards.

Personally I don't believe that the construction industry has the skills needed to build every new house to passive house standards. The new Part L 2021 changes will get a lot of new builds close to it in terms of building fabric performance, but without a lot of investment in training there will be a major skilled labour shortage soon. The danger then is that the Government relaxes standards to maintain building volumes

FreeBear

ComicGeek said: but without a lot of investment in training there will be a major skilled labour shortage soon.

But we already have a skilled labour shortage. Try finding any decent trade, and you are looking at a six month wait.

I did a short course last year (plastering), and the college was trying to push me to take a CSCS card for free. They're [industry] getting desperate for many basic skills.

ComicGeek

FreeBear said:

ComicGeek said: but without a lot of investment in training there will be a major skilled labour shortage soon.

But we already have a skilled labour shortage. Try finding any decent trade, and you are looking at a six month wait.

I did a short course last year (plastering), and the college was trying to push me to take a CSCS card for free. They're [industry] getting desperate for many basic skills.

I'm talking specifically about workers on new builds - that tends to be different companies/trademen to those who do small extensions and minor works for home owners. The larger subcontractors who take on 3-5 year contracts across large new build estates don't normally bother working for individual home owners. Lower rates, but high volumes of work.

Part of the problem with getting local trademen at the moment is that the larger companies are having to outsource work themselves to keep up - our excellent self employed local plumber isn't available for 4 months because he's being paid a lot of money to help out on a new build estate, so that the subcontractor can keep up. Why bother dealing with joe public on multiple jobs per day when he can earn more doing that.

Part of the solar PV labour shortage recently was due to larger companies paying whatever was needed to poach installers to meet contractual deadlines.

[Deleted User]

Sadly I doubt a petition will help. The government knows about this and doesn't care. Maybe if you wait a few years, Labour get in, and they do something to actually resolve the housing crisis then it might be time to ask them about perhaps making sure what gets built is half decent.

Sarah1Mitty2

People have been talking about the "housing crisis" for 20 years, it isn`t really a "crisis" is it?