Council suspends building inspections due to staff shortage

Chelmsford City Council has suspended building inspections and put a freeze on new building control applications because of a lack of qualified staff.

In an announcement on its website, the Essex council said it had paused all building inspections “over the coming weeks”.

In a statement, the council told Construction News: “Like many councils, Chelmsford City Council has been facing an acute building control staffing crisis, caused by a national shortage of qualified building control inspectors in the public sector.

“This has resulted in a short pause in us accepting new applications which should be resolved later this week, and we anticipate reopening for new applications from Friday 4 July.”

In addition to the freeze on new applications, the statement on the council website also said that the council was “currently unable to carry out any building inspections over the coming weeks” due to the “severe” staff shortage.

It said that applicants can email bu**************@************ov.uk to confirm each completed stage of work so they can be updated on their your applications.

“You can also send supporting photos of the work to the same email address.

“We are working to resolve this as soon as possible, and apologise for the inconvenience.”

However, in its statement to CN, the council said it was “receiving professional qualified support from another local authority for existing applications”.

Local authorities are responsible for confirming that buildings – aside from high-rise buildings (HRBs) – meet the standards required.

Under the Building Safety Act 2022, the Building Safety Regulator (BSR) took on the responsibility for building inspections at HRBs, which are at least 18 metres or seven storeys in height.

A shortage of building safety inspectors has soared in recent years and led to nationwide delays.

The BSR is presently undergoing a recruitment drive to increase its staff numbers, with plans to recruit 100 extra inspectors announced today.

The government also said a new Fast Track system will increase inspector and engineer capacity within the BSR to address delays to both new-build case reviews and remediation decisions.

Last year, the chief executive of the Local Authority Building Control (LABC) warned that councils had not been given enough time to get their inspectors certified with the BSR by April 2024, as mandated under the act.