New Part L regs to cost industry over £1.2bn a year

The new Part L building regulations could cost the industry over £1.2bn a year, according to an ODPM report.

It has said that getting up to speed with the stricter energy saving rules would cost almost £1.2bn and a number of industry experts predicted the cost of meeting the new Part L, which came into force earlier this month, will be even higher.

On the ODPM's assessment, the extra costs will impact particularly strongly on the commercial sector, which will now have to spend an extra £309.3m annually on the total costs of new buildings and £358.5m on refurbishments.

Refurbishing industrial buildings is expected to cost £116.2m a year, while replacing domestic boilers with condensing boilers could top £178.5m.

The ODPM's Regulatory Impact Assessment said commercial and public buildings would cost an extra £28.91/m2. This is 1.9% more than at present, assuming that £1500/m2 is the typical cost of a commercial building.

Industrial buildings are set to cost 1.6% more - or £10.32/m2 more - than the £650/m2 estimated at present, according to the predictions.

Martin Russell-Croucher, RICS director of certification and accreditation, said he expected the extra costs to be even higher than the almost 2% predicted by ODPM. He said the ODPM had based its figures on the industry doing the bare minimum to comply.

"If they decide they're going to have a heat pump, a wind farm on the roof and triple insulation they'll probably comply with Part L by a long, long way but it would obviously make costs much more than is strictly necessary to comply with the regulations," he said.

However, he added that the costs of meeting Part L would reduce over time as difficult-to-find energy efficient components became more commonplace.

"I would suspect that in the short term it would be higher [than 2%]. But I think people will estimate that it's going to be a lot higher than it actually will be once it's settled down," he said.

The ODPM also found that adapting to the new requirements could cost the industry £10m in training in the first year.

Meanwhile, developing and maintaining the SBEM method to measure carbon dioxide emissions could cost £50,000 for an unspecified number of years. This is on top of the £500,000 it cost in the year to March 2006.

An environmental consultant told QS News judging the cost of Part L compliance was difficult because the industry was still awaiting the release of the official software to calculate it.

However, she said attaching a 2% figure to every building would be too simplistic "because it does vary significantly between building types and client specification".

Bill Gething, RIBA's president of sustainability and partner at Fielden Clegg Bradley, said it was too early to tell how much extra it would cost, but any short-term spike would be likely to settle down quickly.

Gething added: "It wouldn't surprise me if it was more than 2%, but so what? In the context of global warming you've got to do something."

To access the full report, click here