Planning, building and the environment

Future of Building Regulations

2012 Building Regulations Consultation - Identifying the changes needed to Building Regulations

NOTE: The 2012 Building Regulations consultation exercise has now closed. The Department is considering the responses and will publish a summary of responses on the departmental website.

While Building Regulations have achieved a great deal over the years, it is vital that they are managed and maintained carefully. We want to ensure that the Building Regulations are proportionate and remain fit-for-purpose, responding appropriately to changes in technology, science, build practices and construction techniques. We are also particularly keen to explore what more can be done to ensure people comply with those requirements.

That is why we launched at the end of July 2010 an exercise 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. In particular, we were keen to look for where we could strip away regulation - either because it is unnecessary or because there are other ways to achieve the same outcomes.

These views helped us decide the priority areas for further work, as set out in the Statement made by Building Regulations Minister, Andrew Stunell, on 16 December 2010. This led to the development of a detailed package of proposals for changes to the Building Regulations. The proposals were contained in the consultation announced by the Minister's Statement of 31 January 2012 (see link on right under "On other site").

The package contained a significant deregulatory element as well as proposals to further improve the energy efficiency and safety aspects of the Building Regulations. The consultation was presented in four sections which you can access from the links below:

Section one provided an overview of the consultation package and sets out proposals on various technical aspects of the regulations.
Section two outlined proposals to increase the energy efficiency of buildings ( Part L)
Section three contained proposals in relation to electrical safety in homes ( Part P)
Section four outlined changes to the building control system

Easier to read summary: We also published a short easier-to-read summary of the whole consultation, available below under 'Related downloads'.