The Building control Division of the Council has achieved Quality Assurance Accreditation under ISO 9001:2000 and its primary function is to ensure that building work is carried out in accordance with those regulations.

For most building work detailed plans are required to be deposited with the Council. These plans are checked by Building Control Officers, who are responsible, for the area within which the work is to be carried out. If there are any queries you or your agent will be informed of these. Once these queries are resolved an approval notice will be issued.

Most decisions made under the building Regulations are delegated so plans can be approved quickly, provided that all the necessary information has been supplied. Clearly more complicated schemes take longer to deal with than do small projects. To reduce this period to a minimum we have service level agreements with the groups that we consult.

As work proceeds on site inspections are carried out by the Building Control Officer to ensure that the work on site complies with the Building Regulations.

The Council also enforces the Building Regulations by taking action against the unauthorised development.

To remove any regulatory 'surprises', which may delay your application or increase the cost of the project, we give free informal building Regulations advice prior to the formal application being received.