Liquidation of one building control surveyor and failure of another to register in time 

Work on at least 50 ‘higher risk’ schemes will need to stop due to issues with two private building control surveyors, the Building Safety Regulator has said.

Affected schemes will need to apply to the HSE to get their building control applications validated before they can restart work.

It follows the compulsory liquidation of registered building control approver AIS Surveyors Ltd after the firm was taken to court by a creditor in May.

health and safety

At least 50 higher risk schemes have been told to down tools

Another firm, Assent Building Control, has not registered to become a building control approver under the new building safety regime. The deadline to register was 6 April.

A note sent out by the Building Safety Regulator last week said: “We expect over 50 in-flight higher risk building projects will need to now apply to HSE in their work as the building control and stop work until we have validated their applications.”

It said that as the projects were ongoing their applications would be prioritised over others except those for remediation work.

A “number” of the schemes have been identified but the regulator said it does not hold a record of all buildings affected.

It also urged recipients to share the note so developers “understand the possible effect of this unexpected, additional workload on their current applications”.

Affected schemes are understood to have been undergoing validation by private building control firms before the new building safety regime came into force last October.

The new regime means that the regulator must sign off all higher risk buildings, which are defined as being at least 18 metres, or seven storeys, in height and contain either a care home or hospital or at least two residential units.

Topics