As discussed previously on Burges Salmon's blog (here), from 6 April 2024 the building control industry in England and Wales will become a regulated profession and public and private building inspectors and building control approvers will need to be registered with the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) in order to continue to practice. 

However, there is genuine concern within the built environment sector that insufficient numbers of building control professionals will be able to pass the new competency examinations, and register with the BSR, before the April deadline meaning that there is a risk that the provision of building control services could effectively shut down, with consequent delays and disruption to construction projects across England and Wales.

The situation appears to be particularly grave within local authorities, with Lorna Stimpson, the chief executive of Local Authority Building Control, writing to the BSR, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities and the Welsh Government to: 

• warn that, as it currently stands, a “significant number” of local authorities will cease to be able to undertake building control functions from April 2024; and 
• call for a six month extension to the deadline for building control professionals to achieve certification and to register with the BSR to allow more time for building control professionals to complete this process.

The BSR's response to Lorna Stimpson's call for a delay to the deadline for registration is awaited. In the meantime, more information on this issue can be found in an article published by Building (here) which provides a deep-dive into the potential crisis.