Government to simplify new homes rules

The government says it’s going to simplify the guidelines for developers, reducing the current 100-plus building industry standards to only 10 and slashing the volume of official guidance on new homes from 1,000 pages to fewer than 100.

Critically, the measures - announced by the Department of Communities and Local Government in response to a lengthy consultation exercise - include scrapping the need for builders to ensure their work is checked by up to 15 different organisations.

Currently, a builder may have to have the same work checked by the planning authority, a Code for Sustainable Homes Assessor, a building control organisation, the Homes and Communities Agency and independent standard assessors amongst others. The government reforms aim to streamline these to checks mostly by local authorities.

The department says the government would develop a national space standard, although it falls short of suggesting that this would be the ‘minimum’ space standard of the kind enforced in the distant past through the Parker Morris standards.

The government has also pledged to look at whether councils can continue to impose additional demands on existing national targets for energy efficiency and renewable energy in new homes.