Planning, building and the environment

Building Regulations

We are working to ensure that buildings are safe, healthy, accessible and sustainable for current and future generations.

Building Regulations set standards for design and construction which apply to most new buildings and many alterations to existing buildings in England and Wales. Our role is to:

set objective and fair building standards
publish statutory guidance on ways to meet Building Regulations
oversee and improve the functioning of the building control system and the statutory appeals system, and
support the building control service and others who use the system in their efforts to ensure compliance.

This workstream has close links with our wider work on sustainable buildings.

We provide the secretariat for the Building Regulations Advisory Committee (BRAC), an advisory non-departmental public body (and Scientific Advisory Committee under the Government's Code of Practice for Scientific Advisory Committees 2001) which advises the Secretary of State on the exercise of his power to make Building Regulations and on other related subjects, in England and Wales.

What we are doing

The new consolidated Building Regulations came into force on 1 October 2010. For further information visit the Legislation section below.
Revisions to Part G of the Building Regulations (sanitation, hot water and water efficiency) came into effect on 6 April 2010.
Revisions to Part F (ventilation), Part J (heat producing appliances) and Part L (conservation of fuel and power) also came into effect in October 2010.

Help us identify the changes needed to Building Regulations

We are currently consulting on a number of changes to the Building Regulations regime. For further information about the changes now proposed visit the Future of Building Regulations page. The consultation ends on the 27 April 2012.

The consultation proposals were developed following an exercise in the summer of 2010 to identify what changes are needed to ensure the Building Regulations continue to operate effectively in the future. We invited ordinary people, businesses and local authorities to submit their ideas about what needs to be done.